Results tagged “greatdepression”

Wunderkind director Preston Sturges, screwball comedy king, made seven films between 1939 and 1943, which is a big deal except when you consider that four of them made it on AFI's Top 100 films list. Nice work, bub!

MvB is off to SIFF Cinema for Preston Sturges' Depression-era fable, Sullivan's Travels, and then there's a going-away party for a friend on pilgrimage, held in the medieval pageantry of Canterbury's.

You would think, from reading bulletins about the stock market's drop today--about how the Dow Jones decline rate mimics the Great Depression--that Western civilization was on the brink of extinction. To someone who hasn't bought stock or mutual funds (securities of any kind, for that matter) for at least a decade, this doesn't make sense. The closely followed Dow is an average of the prices of thirty stodgy, old-line industrial companies (out of tens of thousands of publicly traded enterprises). An artificial indicator like that is bound to fluctuate, and consider this: No one is forcing anyone at gunpoint to buy or sell anything; for every seller, there's a willing buyer. The Market goes up, the Market goes down. Don't let it get in your head.

In her inaugural speech [pdf] on Wednesday, Governor Gregoire hearkened back to the Great Depression and called for "generosity among all Washingtonians" in the next few years as the state navigates the worst economic recession since the 1930s. She also hinted at a new program she has named "Washington Jobs Now," saying that she thinks it could create as many as 20,000 new jobs for the state by cutting unemployment taxes for businesses and pushing forward some $1 billion in public works projects. Yesterday, she revealed the details of the plan [pdf] at the 37th Annual Economic Forecast Conference at enterpriseSeattle.

So much for that 15-year record, Bill. Less than a month ago, we were telling you that Bill Gates had once again topped Forbes' list of wealthiest Americans. As it turns out, a lot changes in a month--especially if you're a multi-billionaire heavily invested in stocks when there is this little thing called a global economic crisis occurring.