Lately I have been reading about the Great Depression that began in 1929. It is striking how familiar it all seems. I did not experience the Great Depression. I was born in 1959 at the tail end of the baby boomer generation, but reading about what happened then is eerily like reading today’s newspaper.

In October of 1929 the stock market crashed and changed the lives everyone living at that time. Many of us remember a parent or grandparent who, for the rest of his or her life, reused paper towels or tin foil, or never threw anything away “just in case” as a result of witnessing what went on in this country during the 1930s.

Interestingly the people in 1929 had no idea that they were about to head into the Great Depression, in fact, the newspapers and magazines of the day were saying that the markets would “come back” in a matter of months… or the following year. It sounds just like the talk of “green shoots” and “stabilization” that we are hearing about today. No one in 1929 was predicting that it would take 12 years and the beginning of World War II for this country to turn things around.

There are things they just don’t teach in school about the 1930s. For instance, the depression was a FORECLOSURE CRISIS. Americans at that time came to distrust and even hate the bankers that cut themselves sweetheart deals, while leaving the regular people to fend for themselves. Does that bring the name Goldman Sachs to mind?
It was dangerous to live in America’s towns and cities during the Great Depression years. There were curfews, crime and farmers having shootouts with lawmen who were trying to enforce the foreclosure of their farms. One judge was pulled from his courtroom and almost hanged for refusing to stop the foreclosures that were affecting 40 percent of the homes in some parts of the country.

Where we are right now in the economic cycle seems strikingly similar to the precipice the American Economy was teetering on in 1929. Our President addressed the nation just a day ago and spoke about the need to fix our troubled economy for the benefit of our children and grandchildren. Unfortunately, throwing massive amounts of printed money at the problem is not going to fix it. At most it will delay the day when we will face a new reckoning for the actions of our financial institutions.