Harvey Brenner and others have shown that, other things equal, an increase in unemployment will give rise to an increase in suicides, homicides, many stress-relate diseases, admissions to mental hospitals, deaths from cirrhosis of the liver, arrests, and prison admissions. Now we learn from a savant on this list that a depression in the US will make the US less powerful and lead to less global warming. So in that case, bring it on!
When well-heeled radicals, who never miss a meal and have plenty of cash for world travel, hope for a depression, you know that something is fucked up. Isn't our job to analyze, educate, and agitate, good times and bad? If capitalism sucks, isn't it to be opposed in expansions and contractions? It's the class struggle, isn't it?
Also, isn't there still a good deal of manufactured output in the US? Isn't a lot of transportation and logistics directly connected to it? Not as many workers, true, but is that such a bad thing? You could ask the men in my mother's neighborhood, but work in a factory helped kill all of them. What is need, among many other things, is for union organization to increase, into the south especially, and then address work issues. And for labor to become a political force. Wishing for depressions won't make these things happen. Here or anywhere.
Michael Yates