Next Meeting

The next meeting is scheduled for:

Tuesday September 22, 2009
5:30ish to 8:00 pm

Panera Bread
28551 Schoolcraft Road
Livonia, Michigan

Discussing chapter 10 of America's Great Depression and Scott Horton's interview of Daniel Lakemacher and if there's interest, a related interview with Adam Szyper Seibert.

Chapter 10: 1931-"The Tragic Year"


http://antiwar.com/radio/2009/09/16/daniel-lakemacher
Scott Horton Interviews Daniel Lakemacher
September 16, 2009

Daniel Lakemacher, founder of the website WarIsImmoral.com, discusses his conscientious objector (CO) discharge from the U.S. Navy, how the experience of working at Guantanamo and (independently) learning about the libertarian “non-aggression principle” changed his mind about war and justice, the process of becoming a CO and how the military defines morality in terms of obedience/disobedience.

MP3 here. (25:03)

Daniel Lakemacher was discharged as a conscientious objector from the U.S. Navy on 09/11/09. He is the founder of the website WarIsImmoral.com

http://antiwar.com/radio/2009/09/12/adam-szyper-seibert/
Scott Horton Interviews Adam Szyper-Seibert
September 12, 2009

Adam Szyper-Seibert, counselor and office manager at Courage to Resist, discusses Lt. Ehren Watada’s successful resistance to an Iraq deployment, the year-long waiting list for treatment at the VA, the fraternal bonds that keep reenlistment rates high, increased military success (since WWII) in training soldiers to be hate-driven killers and the “Ft. Bragg 50″ who are held without charges in degrading conditions.

MP3 here. (38:01)

Adam Szyper-Seibert is a counselor and office manager at Courage to Resist, an organization that provides support to military resisters.

"Solidarity forever"

You may have heard that Oakland University's professors have been on strike since last Thursday, when classes were supposed to start. Among their demands is an 11% pay raise over the next 3 years.

Here is fantastic video of one of the rallies, complete with song and dance. Check out the "stop administration dictatorship" sign.

Stock Charts: 1929 & 2009

Rothbard starts chapter nine of America's Great Depression stating, "By early 1930, people were generally convinced that there was little to worry about." The news today is filled with positive stories about unemployment, housing, and economic recovery as if there is little to worry about. So I went to find some stock charts comparing the past few years with the 1930s. Though I'm sure I've seen some overlayed charts in the past, I couldn't find any. If you know of any, please post a link. Here are some charts I found to which I compared current charts from bigcharts.com.

The first one, from http://www.online-stock-trading-guide.com/1930-stock-chart.html, shows 4 1/2 years of the DJIA from Oct 1928 to March 1933. That is one year prior to the 29 crash until the bottom of the market in 33. In comparison is a chart of the last 3 years from BigCharts. This is a little more than one year prior to the start of the current depression. This makes the relative starting points of the two charts a little off but fairly close. We haven't transgressed 3 years into the recession, so the current chart is of shorter duration.


The second set of charts compares 1930 (once again from http://www.online-stock-trading-guide.com/1930-stock-chart.html) to 2008. The stock market crash occurred in October 1929, a couple months after the Great Depression began. The current recession supposedly began in December 2007. Thus, 1930 is the first full year of the Great Depression and 2008 is the first full year of the current depression.


The last set of charts compares the period of 1924 to 1933 to the past decade of 1999 to 2009. The 1924 to 1933 chart is duplicated in numerous places on the web, but I pulled it from http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_01/seymour062001.html. The circles refer to quotes listed in the article at gold-eagle.com. If you haven't seen the article before, click through for a good read.


If we overlaid the second chart starting in 2003 onto the first chart starting at 1925, it looks like there would be strong similarity.

While trying to find charts, I came across one other interesting comparison. From Numbers From the Wasteland, here is current unemployment to unemployment in the 20s & 30s.
If you have any other good comparisons or better charts, please post.

Unemployment continued.

Vice President Biden opened his mouth yesterday to state that the stimulus was improving "the trajectory of our economy" (VOA).

He also stated, "The Recovery Act is doing more, faster and more efficiently and more effectively than most people expected" (AP).

July's unemployment numbers are showing how well the stimulus plan is "working".

The percentage of unemployed workers is going up, yet again. July's percentage is 9.7% of the work force is not employed. An overall increase of .3% unemployment between June and July.

Interview

I haven't listened to this yet but it looks like it discusses whether the left retains its anti-war energy when there is a Democrat president: http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/34788.html