WASHINGTON, DC, June 15 — Here’s some distressing news “America’s 12-year Great Depression began with a crash. The bottom fell out of the stock market on October 24, 1929, signaling the start of the longest and deepest economic decline in the nation’s history. Now that we are in an economic downturn, everyone wants to know if a crash could ever happen again…In 1930, Congress took a recession and turned it into a Great Depression.” So says the Washington Policy Center (WPC), an independent, non-profit think tank.
A recent Rasmussen poll shows that most of us think that Joe Biden’s recession is bound to result in a catastrophic Depression, with a capital D. The survey shows that 52% of respondents fear that a second Great Depression is “likely” and another 10% cautiously said the “are not sure.”
But the business management consulting firm, ITR Economics, says it sees a second Great Depression coming just in time for the 100th anniversary of the first Great Depression. “A high probability exists that the decade spanning 2030–2040 will be one of lost opportunities, great economic distress, lost fortunes, deep regrets, and despair over what might have been…The trends we see are massive and have so much momentum that they will be difficult to change. Action is imperative. We need to implement economic moves that will protect us, to fight the good fight in an attempt to preclude the next Great Depression from hitting with unprecedented force.”
Is it fair to put the blame for the economic disaster that looms over our heads on the president? Billionaire and oil refiner John Catsimatidis told Fox News last week that he thinks so. This, despite the fact that Mr. Biden’s Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo insists on putting the blame on the Russians. She says that the spiking gas prices were triggered by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February. Raimondo points out that President Biden is asking Congress and anyone who has a suggestion on how to fix the problem. The answer is, bring down the price of gasoline, Catsimatidis suggests: the cost of fuel is a critical component of the inflationary spiral because of its impact on the cost of just about everything people need in their day-to-day lives.
He says that the Biden administration ignores the fact that America’s increasing gas prices have a simple solution. In interviews with The Epoch Times and Fox News he said, “We have 100 years’ worth of oil [in the U.S.]. Let [the government] open up the spigots and the price of crude oil will come back down to $55, $60, maybe $65…[Meanwhile, the president] wants to fly to Saudi Arabia and beg the Saudi Arabians to give us another half a million barrels at $120 a barrel…It makes no sense…You know what the cost has been to the American people because of the rising gas prices—the cost of the rising food prices—it’s going to go even higher with $120 oil.”
Our nation is just getting started on the road to a Great Depression, according to the experts. The rate of inflation was at about 1.4% when President Biden took office in January 2021. “The Labor Department on Friday said that the consumer-price index increased 8.6% in May from the same month a year ago, marking the highest reading since December 1981,” according to the Wall Street Journal.
And, according to the Federal Reserve, we seem to be headed for a second quarter of negative growth. These are the indications of a recession. We’re on our way and are starting to talk about stagflation. The Associated Press says “Stagflation is the bitterest of economic pills: High inflation mixes with a weak job market to cause a toxic brew that punishes consumers and befuddles economists.”
Is the president deliberately letting gas prices surge in order to make it easier for the progressive Left to wean us of fossil fuels? Newsmax reports that 53% of Americans polled by the by Convention of States Action and The Trafalgar Group think so versus less than 40% who say it is not deliberate. In its report on the survey, Newsmax cited Mark Meckler, president of Convention of States Action who says, “The hard-to-fathom, surreal idea that Washington, DC, is working against the American people explains why [President Joe] Biden’s poll numbers are in the tank.”
No question about it. We find ourselves depressed by inflation, stagflation and recession, as we head for the road to America’s second Great Depression. Is it inevitable? No! All President Biden needs to do is reverse course on his energy policies now, not tomorrow, and tap into our nation’s vast petroleum resources.
The result would be to not only help to control inflation here at home but worldwide especially where extreme poverty is the norm.