Why This Recession Is No Different From All The Others (VIDEO)

Check out this video, produced by Dent Asset Management, that posits this recession is no different from the many others America has experienced over the decades.

While the idea that this down cycle is nothing unique in the history of the American economy, this video gives a nice summary of that view, with montages of magazine covers and newspaper articles from the Great Depression through to today, as well as speeches from as varied speakers as Rodney King to Ronald Reagan.

Perhaps our favorite is this quote, defining a 'bear market' as "a period of time during which people who believe that 'this time is different' sell their stocks at panic prices to people who understand that 'this time is never different.'"

While we are featuring the shorter (5 minute) version, there is a longer video available on YouTube.

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Comments

[roger54]

02:24 PM on 06/15/2009

Take back the trillions of $$$ given to the banks, who just sit on it and make it totally ineffective then start government incentive to create realistic industries that give employment and generate real productive income, some of which would hopefully be from exports.

Every other country, especially China and most of Europe have goverment incentives to protect it's industries. No matter what you call it it's a form of protectionism and its inevitable. We should stop being naive and take care of our own house. The only ones who win if we don't are the multinational corporations who don't care where they get their hand out.

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[Antifascist-08]

12:31 AM on 06/15/2009

Thanks for the history lesson Mr. Dent.

I feel much better now.

Where can I find you so we can have a meeting about my finances?

[Antifascist-08]

12:26 AM on 06/15/2009

Time for everyone to take a shot at rewriting history.

What the heck.

[5hy56]

04:24 PM on 06/14/2009

Take back the trillions of $$$ given to the banks, who just sit on it and make it totally ineffective then start government incentive to create realistic industries that give employment and generate real productive income, some of which would hopefully be from exports.

Every other country, especially China and most of Europe have goverment incentives to protect it's industries. No matter what you call it it's a form of protectionism and its inevitable. We should stop being naive and take care of our own house. The only ones who win if we don't are the multinational corporations who don't care where they get their hand out.

good articles for a slow news day: href=".http://www.bit.ly/12NCJR>Econ & Finance Articles Updated Daily

[PhilipTaylor]

05:00 AM on 06/14/2009

It is NOT like the OTHERS because:

Salary, bonuses, benefits, and luxuries were the methods of skimming or pilfering the profits of these companies for the benefits of a million Wall Street employees, especially the top 5% to 10%. Leaving the companies vulnerable to the slightest problems and taxpayer backfilling of their GREED! This was NOT Capitalism it was mafia Oligarchy with the FED as a primary TOOL! Like every mafia scheme it eventually self-destructs under its own weight of GREED! We thought Kennedy defeated the mafia but it simply went underground into finance and surfaced as this High Level Employee Skimming of illegally generated profits form every unimaginable scheme the mafia could invent using its Ivy League Talent base of PhDs, MBAs, and PhD Financial Engineers that were indoctrinated into the ways of the clan! It took time but the mafia is alive and well controlling Congress with its ill-gotten loot!

[frantaylor]

06:25 PM on 06/14/2009

You're wrong. It's just the same as every other time. The details differ over time but the basic mechanism never changes. You can see it yourself in what you've written. Fuzz out the concepts just a little and you are talking about every recession we've ever had.

[desertman]

06:36 PM on 06/13/2009

The markets are clearly in a deflationary downturn. No doubt about it. After a long period of credit expansion credit is finally contracting. The smart money is probably betting on lower asset prices...I'm also looking at $2.4 trillion worth of Alt-A mortgages that will need to be refinanced or reset. The peak in those resets won't happen until January 2013. This housing bear market isn't going away any time soon.

"Buy and hold" in the stock market is dead until the next bull market starts. That won't be for a while. This is a trader's market now.

[5hy56]

03:11 PM on 06/13/2009

The recovery is a forest. People have let their credit cards go, and don"t have mortgage payments it looks as if we are spending more and people have disposable incomes again. Actually, savings are getting drained and there are no new jobs. We are in the calm before the storm. People are spending what every little cash they have left on eating out and shopping for smaller ticket items. This will come to an end in 6 months. There are no new jobs. Can you hear the quiet in America?

hat tip to href=".http://short.ie/g264dk">E for providing good finance and economics articles

[BigPictureReg]

09:25 PM on 06/12/2009

A pointless, useless, disjointed advertisement intended to provide interest in Mr. Dent's web site and deb management/financial advisory services.

Garbage.

If there is \anyone who infers from this high school grade presentation that there is a need to gain satisfaction from his offerings, then you are a member of the truly dazed and confused.

Here is Mr. Dent's bottom line, directly from his web site
Securities and
investment advisory
services offered through
RAYMOND JAMES

As it has been said, he is not in the business to teach you things, he's in this business to sell you things.

[it is me]

05:12 PM on 06/12/2009

I find the comments on here so interesting - almost as if I just watched a different video. I think that certainly the financial crisis was significant and far worse than anyone would have predicted, but I think that the meaning behind this video is that all of the topics that are being discussed now, during this recession, are the same topics that have been discussed in the past. People question the same principles and ideas every time around.

I personally saw the video actually as a bit relieving of the fact that makes you think, "yes, we have been here before" and we will get out of it. Of course we will get back here again!

This may sound a bit twisted and I don't wish hardship on anyone, there are almost 3 full generations that have not lived through a recession (some too young to understand the 1991-1992 period), and the entire country had lost a sense of reality.

[GeorgeBright]

04:04 PM on 06/12/2009

I'm sorry but this just isn't a coherent or rational teaching tool. It conflates political, economic and social adversities without finding a common thread or other unifying message. Frankly, besides the theme of "Sh*t Happens" there's no real value to this video. I understand what they were -trying- to communicate, that there are always challenges and as a society we manage to persevere and adapt but they failed in that attempt.

[Antifascist-08]

12:29 AM on 06/15/2009

Its an advertisement for god's sake.

Why all the wondering?

[5hy56]

02:50 PM on 06/12/2009

The market just doesn't seem to care. No one cares about financial institution corruption, bad banks, recession, job loss, hyperinflation. It's just buy buy buy, Thanks to automation technology, outsourcing, in sourcing, free market capitalism/globalization, jobless recoveries are inevitable, sadly, for all future recessions. I predict baseline unemployment will rise from the historical average of 4-5& to 7-8% within the next decade, but the stock market & GDP will keep rising. Higher unemployment will be the new normal. Stocks that benefit from this phase shift are multinationals, high tech, and commodity.

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Politicians will do noting to impede this transition because they lack the power to restrain hypercapitalism, and because they are often paid off.

[TJCole]

01:53 PM on 06/12/2009

Wrong $61 Trillion in Derivatives, makes it different...

[LunaPark]

06:42 PM on 06/12/2009

You're right about the debt. Sure, life will go on, but people are going to suffer terribly for years saddle with bill for bailing out rich bankers. It was funny to hear Richard Nixon rave about price controls, a move that was considered a resounding failure. Nixon completely removed us from the Gold standard in 1971, a mistake that has been repeated since since the time of the Roman Empire.

[Thucydides Jr.]

12:33 PM on 06/12/2009

The main difference in this and every other recession since 1990 is that job recovery gets weaker and weaker than previous recessions. It has been taking longer for jobs to recover to post-recession levels, and I am not sure we ever did recover the job level from the 2001-2002 recession.

Which means , this one is different and worse than most of the recessions we have had in the past pre-1990, but not different but still worse than ones since that time. Maybe we should look at what has happened since the 1979 recession... like de-regulation.

[cgrier61]

11:17 AM on 06/12/2009

So your point is that the ordinary people who are hurt during these crises just brought it on themselves? "If they just held on that worthless stock/triple A bond/overpriced real estate they wouldn't be the losers they are." It's like that line from Animal House: "Hey Kent... you f_cked up... you trusted us." The real point is that these things happen yes but many people are hurt and have their lives ruined and the few at the top get away richer! It's happened before and it's happening now. Thanks for the pep talk... jerk!