Now vs the Great Depression
April 8th, 2009
Matt says the QSBO makes things look pretty bad. A couple of economic historians over at VoxEU think it’s not just bad, it’s worse than the Great Depression:
World stock markets, Now vs GD
However, they do concede that the policy response is better now with central banks loosening the reins a bit:
Money supply, Now vs GD
It’s worth looking at the rest of the plots on Vox if you don’t yet have an idea about how bad things are. It’s very ouch!
Categories: Depression II discussion
Eep.
I would be more worried about the world trade graph than any of the others …
I just picked the most spectacular looking ones
I figured that you’re doing all the analysis but I can spot a pretty picture when I see one!
That VoxEU link is really interesting. Puts things into perspective.
I’m reading Niall Ferguson’s “Ascent of Money”, published just weeks before the proverbial hit the fan last year. Among many, many interesting things covered in the book, he blames the severity of the Great Depression on the US Fed sitting on its hand for two years before finally doing something about the collapse of credit. By contrast, then, the attempts to maintain liquidity today will make comparing the the two processes (in a few years time) an interesting exercise.
Would we be worse off now than they were then if we were NOT pushing mountains of taxpayer cash into the pockets of zombie banks?
Now let’s see what uncle Helen can do for us.
Historically all governmental actors who helped their government into debt end up with a highly payed position in the UN.
Please read the 1937 ( ! ) article “Our financial Masters” on my weblog to understand how we got here…