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Billboard during the Great Depression

12.5 million people are unemployed. 4.4 million of them since January of 2008. Wow. The unemployment level has hit 8.1%, and appears to still be rising. Maybe that stress test 10% worst case scenario may not have been strong enough.

So how can we compare how bad this is? Take into consideration that the author was less than 1 year old the last time unemployment levels were so bad. So when I say first in a lifetime, I mean it.

At least the loses have slowed down slightly. 651,000 people became unemployed in February, compared to 655,000 for January, and a staggering 681,000 in December. December’s job losses hit a 59 year high.

Now we are still no where near the levels of the Great Depression. That era saw unemployment levels of 25%. One-fourth of the country out of work. However, the considerations economists use today are different than in 1930-1940, so to draw a closer comparison, we need to take those changes into account. Most sources I’ve looked at believe that if we used the same method today, the unemployment rate would be about 18%. Staggering.

Regardless of what we want to consider as unemployed, the truth of the matter is the figure is high. If we can’t get a grip and turn things around somehow, our future is bleak for quite sometime. We’re in a prime position right now, on the fulcrum between depression and recovery. Hopefully we land the right way.

Hoover's Remove from Reality

I was watching 60 minutes last night, and when Andy Rooney came on he talked about the past presidents. A group of 65 historians had come together to rank the former presidents from best to worst. The worst was James Buchanan, who was also a bachelor: I agree with Rooney that no lady would want to be associated with America’s worst president.

Then he went on about the Bushes. George H. was listed as 18th, while his son, our most recent G.W., was ranked 36th. What shocked me was that Herbert Hoover was ranked 34th. He was the man in charge when the Great Depression hit.

What’s surprising for all of his problems, at least Bush admitted things were getting worse, he even made sure we had those stimulus checks. While there is a great deal more he could have done, he still did a world more than Hoover.

While people in Kentucky were eating wild-grass, people in Chicago were living out of garbage piles, a million mean were living out of railway cars, Hoover had the audacity to so that nothing was wrong. Americans were living better than they ever had, even the hobos were better fed than ever.

Hoover was a man too far out of touch with not only the people, but with human spirit. He also didn’t believe that people should ask the government for money. He was known as the great humanitarian for a while, organizing and managing relief supplies to European victims in WW1 and to Americans that had suffered disasters before he became president. However, he didn’t think that the funds were from government aid; he believed they were private donations.

Hoover had too much a blind eye driven from his own instinct of making it on your own. Unfortunately, there comes a time when you need to relent such thoughts for the sake of the public good. Hoover was a let down of epic proportions. So although I don’t hold Bush in regards, I cannot agree with considering Hoover to be the better president.