Yes Bob, it is 1929 again-- or worse.

A story from the Washington Post. My comment, published there, follows.

"Is it 1929 again"

By Robert J. Samuelson
Monday, October 6, 2008; Page A15 Washington Post

Watching the slipping economy and Congress's epic debate over the unprecedented $700 billion financial bailout, it is impossible not to wonder whether this is 1929 all over again. Even sophisticated observers invoke the comparison. Martin Wolf, the chief economics commentator for the Financial Times, began a recent column: "It is just over three score years and ten since the [end of the] Great Depression." What's frightening is not any one event but the prospect that things are slipping out of control. Panic -- political as well as economic -- is the enemy.

There are parallels between then and now, but there are also big differences. Now as then, Americans borrowed heavily before the crisis -- in the 1920s for cars, radios and appliances; in the past decade, for homes or against inflated home values. Now as then, the crisis caught people by surprise and is global in scope. But unlike then, the federal government is a huge part of the economy (20 percent vs. 3 percent in 1929), and its spending -- for Social Security, defense, roads -- provides greater stabilization. Unlike then, government officials have moved quickly, if clumsily, to contain the crisis.

We need to remind ourselves that economic slumps -- though wrenching and disillusioning for millions -- rarely become national tragedies. Since the late 1940s, the United States has suffered 10 recessions. On average, they've lasted 10 months and involved peak monthly unemployment of 7.6 percent; the worst (those of 1973-75 and 1981-82) both lasted 16 months and had peak unemployment of 9 percent and 10.8 percent, respectively. We are almost certainly in a recession now, but joblessness, 6.1 percent in September, would have to rise spectacularly to match post-World War II highs.
The stock market tells a similar story. There have been 10 previous postwar bear markets, defined as declines of at least 20 percent in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index. The average decline was 31.5 percent; those of 1973-74 and 2000-02 were nearly 50 percent. By contrast, the S&P's low point so far (Friday) was 30 percent below the peak reached in October 2007.
The Great Depression that followed the stock market's collapse in October 1929 was a different beast. By the low point in July 1932, stocks had dropped almost 90 percent from their peak. The accompanying devastation -- bankruptcies, foreclosures, bread lines -- lasted a decade. Even in 1940, unemployment was almost 15 percent. Unlike postwar recessions, the Depression submitted neither to self-correcting market mechanisms nor government policies. Why?
Capitalism's inherent instabilities were blamed -- fairly, up to a point. Over-borrowing, over-investment and speculation chronically govern business cycles. But the real culprit in causing the Depression's depth and duration was the Federal Reserve. It unwittingly transformed an ordinary, if harsh, recession into a calamity by permitting a banking collapse and a disastrous drop in the money supply.
From 1929 to 1933, two-fifths of the nation's banks failed; depositor runs were endemic; the money supply (basically, cash plus bank deposits) declined by more than a third. People lost bank accounts; credit for companies and consumers shriveled. Economic retrenchment fed on itself and overwhelmed the normal mechanisms of recovery. These channels included: surplus inventories being sold, so companies could reorder; strong firms expanding as weak competitors disappeared; high debts being repaid so borrowers could resume normal spending.
What's occurring now is a frantic effort to prevent a modern financial disintegration that deepens the economic downturn. It's said that the $700 billion bailout will rescue banks and other financial institutions by having the Treasury buy their suspect mortgage-backed securities. In reality, the Treasury is also bailing out the Fed, which has already -- through various actions -- lent financial institutions roughly $1 trillion against myriad securities. The increase in federal deposit insurance from $100,000 to $250,000 aims to discourage panicky bank withdrawals. In Europe, governments have taken similar steps; Ireland and Germany have guaranteed their banks' deposits.
The cause of the Fed's timidity in the 1930s remains a matter of dispute. Some scholars suggest a futile defense of the gold standard; others blame the flawed "real bills" doctrine that limited Fed lending to besieged banks. Either way, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, a scholar of the Depression, understands the error. The Fed's lending and the bailout aim to avoid a ruinous credit contraction.
The economy will get worse. The housing glut endures. Cautious consumers have curbed spending. Banks and other financial institutions will suffer more losses. But these are all normal symptoms of recession. Our real vulnerability is a highly complex and global financial system that might resist rescue and revival. The Great Depression resulted from the mix of a weak economy and perverse government policies. If we can avoid a comparable blunder, the great drama of these recent weeks may prove blessedly misleading.

MY COMMENT:

My guess is that the editor changed Robert's initial conclusion of "this is 1929 again- or worse." How else could such a seemingly intelligent commentator rely on distinctions so dubious?

First, he finds import in the federal government being a larger part of the economy. Pray tell Robert, but what was the government deficit in 1929? Certainly not the equivalent of the $10+ trillion hole of today.

Second, Robert relies on a lower unemployment rate than in previous recessions. The unemployment rate in 1929 and the years following exceeded 25%. The current quote of the unemployment rate at 6.1% is a sham, as it only extrapolates from a small sample, and even that sample is biased as it counts only those as unemployed and "looking for work," and not the actual number of unemployed or (gasp) the army of those underemployed. I'm certain that if the unemployment rate were calculated as it was in 1929, then the number of 6.1% might double or even triple.

Third, I nearly fell over after reading the line "The Great Depression resulted from the mix of a weak economy and perverse government policies." For today, check and check (unless one does not consider an unnecessary and unjustified $2T war as perverse). Robert, let's hope your editor does not destroy your next story.

The fact is, and you seem to imply this, that the problem is not credit, but a historical overabundance of it. The consumer that drives US economic activity is in large part tapped out, having long-suffered stagnating wages while zealously leaping forward into the abyss of overconsumption. This model is unsustainable and, regardless of the amount of taxpayer money the Fed/Treasury (are these still separate institutions?) injects into the system for the banks to loan back to taxpayers at interest, the consumer will not be able to recover until its debt is repaid, its greatest asset (home) stops plummeting in value and its wages are raised. Until then, Ben the "scholar" can tack up all the inflationary window dressing he likes, but the end result will be even greater calamity.