The following are U.S. GDP growth rates for every year during the 1930s…



1930: -8.5%

1931: -6.4%

1932: -12.9%

1933: -1.3%

1934: 10.8%

1935: 8.9%

1936: 12.9%

1937: 5.1%

1938: -3.3%

1939: 8.0%



When you average all of those years together, you get an average rate of economic growth of 1.33 percent.



That is really bad, but it is the kind of number that one would expect from “the Great Depression”.



So then I looked up the numbers for the last ten years…



2007: 1.8%

2008: -0.3%

2009: -2.8%

2010: 2.5%

2011: 1.6%

2012: 2.2%

2013: 1.7%

2014: 2.4%

2015: 2.6%

2016: 1.6%



When you average these years together, you get an average rate of economic growth of 1.33 percent.

On the plus side, it appears the Keynesian interventions have managed to successfully "smooth out" the business cycle This isn't quite right. I ran the numbers and the average for the 1930s is 0.53 percent, whereas the 2010s average is 1.17 percent. So, it's both better and worse than the author wrote. Meanwhile, despite the anemic GDP "growth", the stock market has hit new peaks and optimism is high.And that sound you hear is everyone familiar with socionomics rooting around in their closets looking for their crash helmets.

Labels: economics