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Comment by tobbe2064 | Hacker News Reader

tobbe2064

5 to 10 years of 20% unemployment could be verydangerous in places like the us

You think? Here's the U.S. unemployment rate during the great depression

        1929: 3.2%
        1930: 8.7%
        1931: 15.9%
        1932: 23.6%
        1933: 24.9% (Peak of the Great Depression)
        1934: 21.7%
        1935: 20.1%
        1936: 16.9%
        1937: 14.3%
        1938: 19.0% (Economic recession during the Depression)
        1939: 17.2%
        1940: 14.6%

It's only a fraction of the effect (and of course there was also over financialization), but 20% of the US population was farm labor in the 20s, that fell substantially (and there was the dust bowl) up through the 40s as tractors replaced a significant fraction of all farm labor (perhaps 1% per year). Efficiency does not always drive consumption.

Sure seems to rhyme. Call it Jevon's Tractor Paradox.

Something else certainly happened in the rest of the world about that time too!

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