This Week's TIME magazine cover

Take a look

print

Posted in * Economics, Politics, Economy

11 comments on “This Week's TIME magazine cover

  1. David Fischler says:

    Very clever. The picture says “Depression,” especially when combined with the big headline, but the headline underneath allows Time to deny that they were saying we’re in one. So what’s the message people are going to get from this? And how is it going to effect their voting?

    Do we really need to ask, at least about Time’s intention?

  2. Sick & Tired of Nuance says:

    They should have used this picture of the hyperinflation that happened in the Weimar Republic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation_in_the_Weimar_Republic

    1923 Weimar Republic inflation: A German woman feeding a stove with Papiermarks, which burned longer than the amount of firewood people could buy with them.

    Or this one: http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.old-picture.com/united-states-history-1900s—1930s/pictures/wheelbarrow-mutilated.jpg&imgrefurl=http://speculativenonfiction.blogspot.com/2008/06/williams-on-hyperinflation.html&h=436&w=553&sz=42&hl=en&start=32&um=1&usg=__NZFUeamOoXKVKJPRCMOah7m3GdU=&tbnid=FtlM1szr5-1wCM:&tbnh=105&tbnw=133&prev;=/images?q=hyperinflation&start=20&ndsp=20&um=1&hl=en&safe=active&rls=GFRG,GFRG:2007-11,GFRG:en&sa=N

    The picture they used has a two fold purpose. First, it is a not so subtle indictment of the Republican party leading us to the brink of yet another “Great Depression” [linkage to Hoover]. Second, it provides cover for the action taken by the current Democrat controlled congress that deftly avoided that terrible fate through the current legislation, because it redirects from the current and future inflationary trend that actually exists, to the hypothetical alternative. No hint is given about the coming storm and the Democrats responsibility in taking us there.

  3. Sick & Tired of Nuance says:

    The Times got it right in this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/world/europe/04germany.html?em

    A boy played with a kite made of German banknotes in 1922, as hyperinflation in the ’20s rendered much of the currency worthless. Germans now are more cautious in financial matters.

  4. Cole says:

    Look at all those people in the soup line! ‘ Can’t wait to see new people in a new line. ‘ Serves them right. (Projecting forward) … They probably invested in their 401K or were small business owners. Some of them may have voted for a Republican president. Yes, GW was an Acorn activist and encouraged the unsecured mortgage debt. Of course since progressives in religious denominations have decided to rewrite the Book, it now says “Thou shalt covet thy neighbors goods.” Wealth is created by redistribution instead of by productivity, discovery or invention. ‘ Best way to buy votes. Time creates its own reality.

  5. William P. Sulik says:

    Actually, Time should have used a current photo. For example, this photo from less than a month ago shows thousands of poor, oppressed masses huddling together in Boston:

    http://tinyurl.com/4l7dzq

    Or this line of miserable people, waiting in a line that was said to stretch a mile long:

    http://tinyurl.com/6hpd7w

    I’m sure there’s no lack of pictures Time could’ve used, given the current wretched state of America.

  6. KevinBabb says:

    The histrionic nature of the press never fails to amaze me. These people would see someone lighting a cigarette and start yelling, “Fire!!”

    To ping off Wm. Sulik’s post immediately preceding, I would submit that the photo on the TIME cover is not accurate because those folks are not talking on their cell phones, or playing with the latest GameBoy cartidge, or listening to music on their iPhones, or discussing the program they saw last night on cable TV (the most Thoreauvian of them limiting their package to “basic cable”–a tribute to self-denial).

    I suspect that one of the reasons the press can get away with such goofy comparisons is Americans’ terrible conception of history. The fact that time has taken almost all people who actually remember the Great Depression may also have something to do with this. Even during the recession of 1981, there were too many people still living who could call “Bovine Excrement!!” for a comparison with the Great Depression to be made.

    Our current rate of unemployment was not seen in any year from 1929 to 1940. In fact, twice the current number would have been considered low in most of those years.

  7. Chris says:

    this crazy stuff is driven in part by the reality that Time and the other MSM outlet continue to see dwindling readership rates, so I think things are worse for them than most of the rest of us…..

  8. RoyIII says:

    Buddy, can you spare a dime?

  9. Clueless says:

    #9 We gave Wall Street 750 billion to bail out the Federal Reserve which had already illegally spent that amount. It was also to bail out Chinese banks with subsidiaries in the US.

    I plan to vote against every incumbent this November who voted for this plan.

  10. Bob Lee says:

    As soon as obama is in the news will turn around. Don’t fret. ALL the news you see now is just posturing. Scare you into “voting for a ‘Change'”

  11. physician without health says:

    Have a look at this week’s Economist cover, which can be pulled up at economist.com. Also very compelling. (And while you are at it, don’t miss the piece on the church in China, which is very encouraging… sorry to go off topic).