- Here we are again, happy as can be
- Listening to lots of hogwash from the BBC
They've said it before and they say it again: the number of suicides in the USA following the 1929 Wall Street Crash was exceptional. I read part of a book by JK Galbraith recently and he had a chapter on this topic. Let Galbraith tell the story:
In his classic examination of the 1929 Wall Street crash John Galbraith disabuses us of a widely held notion:
In the week or so following Black Thursday, the London penny press told delightedly of the scenes in downtown New York. Speculators were hurling themselves from windows; pedestrians picked their ways delicately between the bodies of fallen financiers.
In the United States the suicide wave that followed the stock market crash is part of the legend of 1929. In fact there was none. For several years before 1929 the suicide rate had been gradually rising. It continued to increase in that year, with a further and much sharper increase in 1930, 1931 and 1932 – years when there were many things besides the stock market to cause people to conclude that life was no longer worth living (chapter 8).
Galbraith goes on to say that in the two months following the crash the number of suicides in New York were actually comparatively low. There were in fact only two suicides on Wall Street ...
http://frontierpsychiatrist.co.uk/category/suicide/
Wall Street Crash 1929
That rather gay Aussie, Aaron, who works on the business news at BBC World yesterday compared the current global economic downturn to the 1929 crash. Completely off his trolley but he was allowed to say that without being challenged. It is well known by even the most amateur of economists that there is no effective comparison to be made between 1929 and now. It's more BBC driven hogwash but it didn't stop them showing a few news reel clips from 1929 on yet another programme today. In that programme, as a matter of interest, there was an "expert" who had learned to say that today's situation is unique. That's all, he had nothing else to say. I hope they didn't pay him for that. That was in a review programme in which three "experts" were brought in to discuss this year's financial crisis. Extremely low level, all three trying desperately not to offend each other. One of them was wearing the most ridiculous socksI've seen in quite a while: at least they matched his shirt!
Lame Duck President?
By the way, when and where did you first hear George W Bush denounced as a lame duck president? You know the story, someone thinks it's smart that they can say on the radio or television that a US President who is about to leave office must be incapable of taking decisions ... What do you think? November, October, September? How about February of this year? Some young girl of a reporter included that sentiment in a report she had put together. My guess is that there was a lottery syndicate in the newsroom: who can work in this lame duck president angle first.
DW
