President Donald Trump says his 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico are coming on Saturday. Trump also said he'll "probably” decide on Thursday night whether to include oil from those countries as part of his import taxes.
Even the great depression was, itself, an entirely artificial crisis.
I’m not saying that it occurred artificially; the causes were all real, and happened naturally.
But if you consider for even a moment the idea that a stock market crash leads to widespread starvation, it doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense.
Times of hardship used to be caused by things like droughts or harsh winters; stuff that actually impacted our ability to support ourselves in a physical way.
But how does someone’s investments failing prevent a farm from growing food? Does crop fertility track with the Dow-Jones? Does soil become less tillable because the FTSE is down?
The idea that people should starve, in a world that has no less ability to produce crops than it did yesterday, just because there is suddenly less money moving around, is absolute lunacy. In a sensible world, we’d think less about money and more about resources. Resources do not depend on the stock market. Resources do not become more scarce because a bunch of people made bad bets on the housing market.
No one should starve in a world with the capacity to feed everyone. And we have more than the capacity to feed everyone.
Iirc, there was also a majorly catastrophic weather event ripping through the majority of prime farmland around the start of the Great Depression that caused tons and tons of crops to fail as a result, which would’ve made access to food scarce and likely more expensive.
I believe it was The great dust bowl that happened around 1934/1935, but I’d have to double check
OK, that’s fair. I’d forgotten about that particular detail. More fool me. But it’s notable that no such catastrophe existed in 2008, and no such catastrophe exists today, and yet we’re still struggling to put food on plates despite more than enough food existing for everyone.
Even the great depression was, itself, an entirely artificial crisis.
I’m not saying that it occurred artificially; the causes were all real, and happened naturally.
But if you consider for even a moment the idea that a stock market crash leads to widespread starvation, it doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense.
Times of hardship used to be caused by things like droughts or harsh winters; stuff that actually impacted our ability to support ourselves in a physical way.
But how does someone’s investments failing prevent a farm from growing food? Does crop fertility track with the Dow-Jones? Does soil become less tillable because the FTSE is down?
The idea that people should starve, in a world that has no less ability to produce crops than it did yesterday, just because there is suddenly less money moving around, is absolute lunacy. In a sensible world, we’d think less about money and more about resources. Resources do not depend on the stock market. Resources do not become more scarce because a bunch of people made bad bets on the housing market.
No one should starve in a world with the capacity to feed everyone. And we have more than the capacity to feed everyone.
Iirc, there was also a majorly catastrophic weather event ripping through the majority of prime farmland around the start of the Great Depression that caused tons and tons of crops to fail as a result, which would’ve made access to food scarce and likely more expensive.
I believe it was The great dust bowl that happened around 1934/1935, but I’d have to double check
OK, that’s fair. I’d forgotten about that particular detail. More fool me. But it’s notable that no such catastrophe existed in 2008, and no such catastrophe exists today, and yet we’re still struggling to put food on plates despite more than enough food existing for everyone.