Welcome to European Tribune. It's gone a bit quiet around here these days, but it's still going.
Display:
The chart tells you why the bailouts were such a bad idea: the economy kept accumulating debt as GDP shrank.

Another interesting thing about the chart is that it only goes back to the mid-1960's. It would be interesting to see what it looked like into the 1920's.

The brainless should not be in banking -- Willem Buiter

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Mar 22nd, 2010 at 11:40:51 AM EST
[ Parent ]
It would be interesting to see what it looked like into the 1920's.

I was thinking the same thing. From other charts that Steve Keen has posted I recall that the economy then also experienced both decline in GDP and massive increase in debt, but there were not the stabilizers such as SS, Medicare, Unemployment Insurance, etc., nor did the USA already have debt as a huge proportion of GDP when the Crash of '29 struck. We won't repeat those mistakes. We will make new and worse mistakes this time!

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Mon Mar 22nd, 2010 at 02:02:41 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Display:

Occasional Series