FLASHBACK: Remembering The Great Depression In Pics:







Indiana Folk Hero and Federal Most Wanted Bank Robber

John Dillinger. whose still remembered fondly in some parts of Indiana. Dillinger was known to stop and give 1/4 of bank robbery holdings to poorest here in Indiana during the Great Depression. often quoted as saying "You need it more then I." Of course Johnny was gunning down State Troopers in road chases.



Bonnie Parker and Cldye Barrow (Bonnie and Clyde) Also Depression Era Bank Robbers under the Barrow Gang. Also became Folk Hero's and protected in several states when they too would stop after a Bank Hold Up and known to give 1/4 of Bank Loot to Depression Era Poorest of the Poor.

This Economy Stinks, Yes It Does
By Dean Baker
August 10, 2010

If there were any doubts about the health of the economy, two reports issued in the last ten days should have eliminated them. First the second quarter GDP showed the economy growing at just a 2.4 percent annual rate. Then the Labor Department reported on Friday that the economy created just 12,000 jobs in July after removing the impact of temporary Census employees. Both reports are really bad news about the economy’s near-term prospects.

snip

So, we are sitting here with a moribund recovery that promises to leave tens of millions of people unemployed or underemployed for the indefinite future. And the political options at the moment seem to be between Democrats who tell us things are good and Republicans who say the economy stinks, but don’t have a clue on how to make things better.

Just to be clear, we do know how to make things better, we just lack the political will. Spending money creates jobs. Even Tea Partiers will work for money, in most cases even if the money comes from the government. Unless the private sector somehow will spend less because the government spends more (tell me the loony story, I love fairy tales), then more stimulus will create more jobs.

More stimulus does not have to create a debt burden for our children. The Fed can buy and hold bonds so that the interest is paid to the Fed and refunded to the Treasury. Japan’s central bank has done this and its interest burden is less than ours even though its debt is more than three times as high compared to the size of its economy. And, its main problem continues to be deflation – inflation is nowhere in sight.

The Fed can do more. It can set an inflation target of 3-4 percent. This would give businesses more incentive to invest. (Suppose that they knew all prices would be on average 15 percent higher in five years.) It also would alleviate the debt burden of homeowners by raising their nominal wages and house prices.

Finally, if we can’t boost the economy, we can restructure work. Germany and the Netherlands have both gone the route of work sharing, using unemployment benefits to give firms credits to shorten workweeks rather than layoff workers. The unemployment rate in the Netherlands is hovering near 4.0 percent. In Germany it is 7.1 percent, but that is lower than it was at the start of the downturn.

snip

There is no excuse for the mass suffering the country is now experiencing. The people in charge messed up disastrously. They are still messing up disastrously. The public has every right to be furious at the incredible level of incompetence shown by those in charge. They should demand better.

Read the full article at:http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/this-economy-stinks-yes-it-does

http://news.goldseek.com/PeterCooper/1281593340.php
Hindenburg Omen Confirmed As Equities Slump, Buy Short ETFs
Peter Cooper, Arabian Money
Thursday, 12 August 2010
The complex chart indicator known as a Hindenburg Omen occurred yesterday for the first time since the market lows of March 2009. This is a major chart indicator suggesting a market crash is imminent.

However, a confirmed Hindenburg Omen does not necessarily mean that the stock market will go down, although every Wall Street Crash since 1985 has been preceded by a Hindenburg Omen. If nothing else traders on Wall Street will sit up and pay attention to this key indicator. . . .

Those who dismissed astrologer Arch Crawford and his warnings of a market crash this month might want to read this article again

http://www.arabianmoney.net/gold-silver ... h-october/
Astrologer Arch Crawford sees crash August through October
Posted on 18 July 2010

. . . . Arch Crawford has been tracking planetary activity with considerable success and his newsletter call was for a crash between May 1st and November 1st this year. The May 5th ‘flash crash’ already fulfills this but he thinks the downturn to come will be much, much worse. . . .

This is the biggest thing we have ever seen’, he told Goldseek.com radio. ‘That includes the First World War, Great Depression and Second World War’.
Could this be some kind of major geopolitical event? It is hard to say but Crawford got the August 2nd 1990 invasion of Kuwait right, and has a string of similar forecasts under his belt. . . .

more @ links provided above

Shy - great find!

Because I'm ignorant - I went to Wikipedia to look up "Hindenburg Omen."

Wikipedia also states "One nearly occurred on August 11th, failing only in that 67 stocks hit new lows, rather than the required 69." (see link below)

Hindenburg Omen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Hindenburg Omen is a technical analysis pattern that is said to portend a stock market crash. It is named after the Hindenburg disaster of May 6, 1937, during which the German zeppelin Hindenburg was destroyed.

snip

Criteria
The traditional definition of a Hindenburg Omen has five criteria:

That the daily number of NYSE new 52 Week Highs and the daily number of new 52 Week Lows must both be greater than 2.2 percent of total NYSE issues traded that day.
That the smaller of these numbers is greater than or equal to 69 (68.772 is 2.2% of 3126). This is not a rule but more like a checksum. This condition is a function of the 2.2% of the total issues.
That the NYSE 10 Week moving average is rising.
That the McClellan Oscillator is negative on that same day.
That new 52 Week Highs cannot be more than twice the new 52 Week Lows (however it is fine for new 52 Week Lows to be more than double new 52 Week Highs). This condition is absolutely mandatory.
These measures are calculated each evening using Wall Street Journal figures for consistency. The occurrence of all five criteria on one day is often referred to as an unconfirmed Hindenburg Omen.

A confirmed Hindenburg Omen occurs if a second (or more) Hindenburg Omen signals occur during a 36-day period from the first signal.

The Hindenburg Omen mechanism can be applied to other stock exchanges like Paris, Berlin, Tokyo or Sydney but the criteria for it must overall be the same.

[edit] Possible or known weaknesses
To eliminate false positives some technical analysts (as a rule) have imposed the condition that the Hindenburg Omen

"must be triggered 3 times in a row within a month from the 1st triggering event for said initial trigger signal to be considered to be valid"
must be valid when "all tightly coupled triggerings are within a fortnight" (14 working days)
will indicate a possible future downturn or correction, depending on the magnitude of any "one off" triggering
One off Hindenburg Omen signals are always considered unconfirmed as the indicator has a high false alarm rate. A train of 3 to 5 coupled Hindenburg Omens are preferred by analysts wherever possible.

Read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindenburg_Omen

Just an aside about the Hindenburg airship (honestly it just flashed in my mind as i was reading these posts).

It has been ascertained that a large part of the reason the Hindenburg went up in the immediate and explosive conflagration it did was that the skin of the vehicle was painted in a special light weight new (for the time) water resistant paint and the chemical makeup was largely a derivative of explosively flammable compounds (1) "Furthermore, the substance used to coat the cotton skin — a process known as “doping” which makes the fabric taut and more durable — was extremely flammable. A combination of iron oxide, cellulose acetate and aluminum powder, “the total mixture might well serve as a respectable rocket propellant,” . which is basically the base material of chemical rocket propellants. (Space shuttle booster and missile go go powder)

In a delightful, although painful parallel concept, our economy was built and sheathed with corrosive and explosive materials. Who'd a thunk it? Just a quirky thought.

(1)http://www.rossolson.com/dwelling/2003/02/hindenburg-facts/