About: Welcome to the New Depression

Introduction

During the Great Depression the Carter Family had a hit with “No Depression in Heaven”.
It proclaimed that the Depression meant that the end of the world was coming and we would soon face the final Day of Judgment.

“I’m going where there’s No Depression / To a better land that’s free from care
I’ll leave this world of toil and trouble / My home’s in heaven, I’m going there”

I wanted to write about the current state of the American economy but, in the spirit of Woody Guthrie, present it as an “answer song”– one that responds to an older song by offering a different perspective.

Welcome to the New Depression (2016)

Economy. Some say it’s fine / But we’re falling though the bottom line
Retirement plans are lying in the gutter
Homeless population grows /Working families lose their homes
Days of living comfortably are numbered

Welcome to the New Depression / A lot of folks are falling through the cracks
I don’t think it’s natural selection / Or just a case of not knowing all the facts

Finance companies pumped their egos / When Congress killed Glass-Steagall
But banks too big to fail learned how to cheat us / We knew we needed stimulus
But Congress wouldn’t help us out
We needed John Keynes but they gave us Milton Friedman, Milton Friedman…

What are the people supposed to do / When all their money goes for rent and food
With nothing in their pockets left to spend
I thought I found the magic key / When I read Thomas Piketty
But I only got to page two hundred and ten

Welcome to the New Depression / Where inequality rules the land
Economists, please run some more regressions / While we pray like hell for the invisible hand

I thought we lived in a land / where people lent a helping hand
To those of us who were falling far behind
I used to think that all our kids / could end up better than we did
But now it seems like we are in decline, in decline…

Welcome to the New Depression / Remember that old Carter family song?
They said, “We’re going where there’s no Depression” / But do we have to die to come along? Welcome to the New Depression…