Are we living through another 1920s?

Forgot to mention wealthy people making piles of money doing nothing and spending it as if there's no end in sight.

Even Jordan cheating at golf reminded me of Trump's self proclaimed expertise.

Tom gets away with having an affair Daisy gets away with running Myrtle over and killing her.

They go on with their lives because all those other people don't matter.

Nick is politely excluded from their lives because he knows the truth.

I want to be Nick.

Ivanka and Jared are today's version of Daisy and Tom. And there are thousands just like them.

We are living in a time of relative ease and plenty, with no major wars.

We are also, alas, living through an era when media of all types try to fight declining relevance by literally scaring up an audience.

Its too bad the clothes and music aren’t as nice as the 1920’s. Also we can’t smoke.

I think Myrtle's house would now be center court at the US Open.

Perfect casting.

Tom popping off about the white race being wiped out was like listening to any pro-Trump voter today.

People said that about the 80s, too

Yes there is change in the air and I dont like it.

What's coming will make 1929 seem lovely.

R12 is right.

US unfunded liabilities are over $200 trillion.

Debt levels for the federal, state and local governments are well over 100% of GDP.

$1.2 trillion of corporate debt is facing a downgrade to junk, which will force liquidation since insurance companies and most other institutions cannot hold debt rated below BBB

The massive amounts of debt are choking the economic system, dragging down business formation and capital investment expenditures.

When outside forces demand that the federal reserve raise interest rates dramatically, the effect on government and corporate and personal finances will be devastating.

Businesses that are already stretched thin will be forced into bankruptcy.

A federal funds rate of just 6% would result in the vast majority of government spending to be diverted to paying interest on newly issued government debt.

This system has been allowed to metastasize, and nothing can stop the eventual “dash for the exits” when the herd mentality changes course overnight.

Anyone who has studied the origins of the current monetary system, and the faulty economic reasoning that allowed it to be birthed like Rosemary’s baby into our world, has already moved to fiscally protected positions in cash, companies that benefit from inflation- oil stocks, mining stocks, any company that produces dividends and has ample cash flow to buy up faltering competitors for pennies on the dollar.

When the weakness of 30 years of ill-conceived federal reserve policy- one that prevented liquidation of malinvestment, and enabled zombie companies to survive for nearly 4 decades with repeated government bailouts - finally manifests, the dollar will suffer.

I'd be ok with that, as long as it includes a big dance craze like the Charleston. Tough times lead to increase of nightclubbing, the same thing happened in the 70s with disco. I hope it happens again. Dance your cares away, people!

[R13] that is alarming. Do you think this is going to happen within the next ten years?

4 more years and it's a guarantee

R15

Almost certainly.

The bullshit that they pulled in 2008 to bail out the banks has destroyed the middle class over the last decade.

A possible sharp rise in interest rates could happen anytime. If inflation jumps from 3% to 5% in a six-month period, the Federal Reserve will be forced to raise rates dramatically. Or, they will simply flood the monetary system with more money and juice the heroin junkie banks one more time to keep them alive.

The yield curve inversion, the third in just a few weeks, is a signal that all is not well underneath the surface of the economy. If money supply growth drops any further than the capital structure necessary to keep the stock market growing will lose footing, and liquidation into an insolvent market could get brutal.

The United States has almost exceeded the record long expansion recorded decades ago. Unfortunately, this recovery has been very shallow and poorly distributed towards the bottom 90%.

And exogenous or endogenous event, inside or outside the markets (Bankruptcy of Deutsche Bank being the front runner for cataclysmic catalyst) is all it takes.

No - the 1990s were the 1920s-redux:

Carefree time with wild financial growth before a big economic collapse

The American 1920s were a madcap era - unlike ours

I thought we were in a new Gilded Age, not repeating the 1920s (yet).

YES, OP!

I'm with R19. We're living through the Gilded Age 2.0.

And I didn't understand half the words R13/R17 wrote. But I'm terrified.

It will end with populists overthrowing the elites. People with actual pitchforks will be traveling to NY and CA to take care of the problem.

[quote] People with actual pitchforks will be traveling to NY and CA to take care of the problem.

Send them to DC where they can start with the Republican congressmen.

R22 - that’s what I’m afraid of

Who exactly in “California and New York” would get the pitchfork?

[quote] Who exactly in “California would get the pitchfork?

Maybe Twitter? But then that would leave their King Trump without a place to sit on the toilet and tweet every night.

The best thing about that lackluster 1974 Gatsby is the costuming. Ralph Lauren did the men's clothes and the divine Theoni Aldredge the women's. It's understandable when Gatsby finds Daisy crying on the floor surrounded by his shirts and when he asks her what's wrong, she replies she's never before seen such beautiful shirts.

[quote]Debt levels for the federal, state and local governments are well over 100% of GDP.

And Japan's is over 200%. Last time I checked it hadn't fallen into the ocean.

R23 has it right. Sadly, the only way change will happen.

[quote]Tom gets away with having an affair Daisy gets away with running Myrtle over and killing her.

And no one made anything of that? Some writer, that Fitzgerald.

Except we don't have another Calvin Coolidge or Herbert Hoover, we've got an orange buffoon more in line with some European leaders from the 19th century. Who were eventually assassinated or dethroned in dramatic exit.

It was the complete disregard for the non-rich that made me feel like it's the 20s all over again.

The rich get rich and the poor get laid off, indeed.

DLers will be fine. Apparently most of us are millionaires....

[quote] ... we've got an orange buffoon more in line with some European leaders from the 19th century. Who were eventually assassinated or dethroned in dramatic exit.

So true, R30. Theresa May was just unseated in Great Britain. Who's next?

It would end in the voting booth if we didn't have so many stupid bitches--males and female--in this country.

Trump will have to be forcibly removed IF he loses the next election.

R27

Japan has had zero real growth in over 20 years, and is propped up solely by a worldwide record savings rate.

The bank of Japan owns nearly 50% of the top companies on the Nikkei. The government has been forced to resort to outright debt monetization in order to keep the Japanese economy from crashing.

But, keep telling yourself that deficits don’t matter. You obviously don’t know anything about debt except what Krugman regurgitates.

1920s? No, booze is still legal.

Actually, more like the 1940s without World War. They had Hitler, Stalin, Hirohito and Mussolini. We have Trump, Putin, Kim Jong Un and Maduro.

Germany in 1930, OP!

Yes. It’s the US in 1929.

R40, if the stock market crashes (or even just slows down for awhile), Trump will be much less likely to win the election. Small price to pay, in my view.

I live 1/4 mile from the burial place of Scott and Zelda. I'll walk down there this weekend and listen for the sounds of them spinning in their graves.

HA! R32, I love it.

....

Maybe the roaring 90s. That ended about as well as the roaring 20s. Remember “irrational exuberance”?

Why is he buried in Maryland?

[quote] Trump will have to be forcibly removed IF he loses the next election.

Is that supposed to be a difficult or threatening thing to do? What is he going to do -- glue his fat ass to the Oval Office chair and cling onto to dear life with his tiny hands as the Secret Service yanks him away?

Actually, this is the 1880s all over again--the age of the robber baron.

In the 1920s because were using non-existent money to live high. Now we're using non-existent money for educations and debt servitude so we can work in shitty jobs. There's also a modern day shantytown in San Fran and other big cities.

R42, are they buried together? That's nice.

But what was playing on the April 1920 GAP In-Store Playlist?

Got junk silver coins?

Bump

You want to see it roar? Wait til there's a vaccine. We'll blow the roof off, everybody. There is a pent up desire to live... it's going to be crazy and, I believe, crash spectacularly.

Where it will end, OP? Have you seen the opening scene of Season 3 of Babylon Berlin?

I love Babylon Berlin