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  • What does he expect. Libertarianism is basically enacting the policies that led to the great depression. Trump is reacting in the way that made it worse, but you are the kerosene to his spark. Expect great depression when you get what you want.

    • I hope he is right. We could do a lot of good if we kept them out of office.

      • GOP should be banned from American politics. They have repeatedly violated the constitution at this point and are clearly compromised.

    • Libertarianism is basically enacting the policies that led to the great depression.

      I would love a brush up on American History, asking for future readers.

      • The Roaring Twenties (1920s) was a time of wild economic growth and insane deregulation. Coolidge and Hoover caused the Great Depression by dismantling the government's ability to regulate commerce and by raising tariffs to an insane level. America enjoyed a brief Gilded Age for the wealthy that caused a global economic collapse.

        The reason Bank of America and Merrill Lynch have to operate as two separate entities is because of the Glass-Steagal act, enacted in response to the Great Depression, which split up commercial and investment banking to stop them from making the same mistakes again.

        Like almost every other economic downturn, the Great Depression was caused in large part by laissez faire capitalism. Unregulated banks were gambling with too much of their customer's money by making extremely risky investments in the stock market and agriculture (in 2008 it would be risky investments in sub-prime mortgages).

        The tariffs were temporarily successful at isolating and enforcing american industry (note that the domestic industry was still strong enough to benefit, unlike now). But the Banks' speculation bubble collapsed in the Wall Street Crash of 1929, and since commercial and investment banking were still intertwined, it wasn't just people losing the vaue of their stock portfolios - the banks were gambling with the money in their customers' savings accounts.

        Once people realize that the bank doesn't have the funds to cover all of its accounts, that starts a run on the banks. Without the FDIC to insure your savings, when your bank goes bankrupt, you go bankrupt. The Great Depression begins in full.

        Those same tarrifs prevent any relief or recovery from overseas. US citizens couldn't afford to live. They couldn't afford to buy domestic goods made down the street or heavily tariffed imports. Even when tariffs were pulled back it took time for supply chains to be rebuilt.

        Reciprocal tariffs from overseas craters international demand for US goods, and suddenly US citizens couldn't afford US products either. No customers, no money. Factories begin to close with no available replacements in the supply chain.

        Domestic agriculture and industry collapsed, at a time when there was (intentionally) very little trade with other nations. Americans suffer, starve, and die. Tension builds, eviction standoffs begin, and homeless populations assemble by the thousands in "Hoovervilles" - shanty towns that looked very similar to the living conditions in Gaza pre October 7th.

        Without constant planting, irrigation, and harvest, and with the long-term damage done by unregulated agriculture, Middle America becomes the Dust Bowl. It takes less than 5 years for the landscape to transform, and dust storms hit Washington DC in 1935.

        90 years ago. 1935. You probably know someone that old. There are about a million Americans alive today who were born at a time when over a million Americans were homeless, many living in refugee camps in the new American Desert. There were cars, and airplanes, and CRT TV's, and American children starving by the tens of thousands.

        All of it started because a Republican President let corporations gamble recklessly without oversight while "protecting" American industry with extreme tariffs that cut the nation off completely from the global economic network.

    • Look if you don't want to vote for bears you should have chosen to be born someplace smarter

  • I don't think they need to worry, the dems like losing a lot more.

  • First time ever that I hope Rand Paul is correct. Don't threaten me with a good time Rand Paul!

296 comments