Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


HOW BAD IS IT?….Andy McCarthy asks:

The Worst Economic Crisis Since the Great Depression?

That’s the Obamanomics mantra. Should be we really be letting that slide by without a response? Going to high school in the Carter Seventies, I remember sitting in the gas lines. Toward the end of Carter’s tenure, interest rates were around 20%, inflation was at close to 14%, and unemployment was just over 7% (it soared over 10% before the Reagan recovery kicked in).

I don’t mean to minimize the straits we’re in, and I appreciate that things are likely to get worse — maybe a lot worse — before they get better. But aren’t Democrats skipping over a pretty awful bit of history when they say this is as bad as it’s been in 75 years?

Well, look: interest rates hit 20% because Paul Volcker put them there in order to fight inflation. But it’s not inflation that that’s the measure of a recession, it’s output growth and employment. And at least at the moment, the projections for output and employment over the next year are about as bad as they were in 1980-82 — and that’s even without an oil shock to kick things off. Add to that the fact that the financial system is collapsing worldwide, entire countries are going bankrupt, a couple of dozen really big banks have gone bust, and credit markets are still frozen despite trillions of dollar in various interventions from national governments, and yeah, I’d say this is the worst financial crisis since the Depression. Does anybody really want to take the other side of that debate?

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate