What STUPID people! According to REAL economists, the 30's depression would have been a run-of-the-mill mild recession EXCEPT the gub'ment people got involved. Then they spend the next fifty years lying about the causes. What did they teach you in school? It was the evil businessman, the wild speculation, the stock market shenanigans.

 No. It was government who quadrupled income taxes in the same year they cut the money supply in half. With no liquidity, there was a financial meltdown. THEY were the cause. And we've had to live with the consequences of the Great Socialist, FDR, ever since. Social Insecurity, minimum wage, etc etc.

it's said that "those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it". Sadly there are those who profit from the worst parts of history. And those types of people have no problem making damned sure that *no one* learns from history, and do everything they can to *force*people to repeat it.

So certain folks want us to act like it's the 30's again? Want to look back at what that era was like worldwide and the evils that came about soon after? Depressions, Isolationism, Eugenics, the rise of the Nazi party and it's pseudo-religious propaganda? the first industrialized attempts at genocide? And the seeds of what became the first wartime activation of nuclear weapons that created generations of fear while stifling future development of peaceful energy sources for over a half century (and beyond)?

No thanks. Let's *not* do things the way they did in the 30's. Let's try something different-Liberals are big on "social experiments" anyways. We did the Liberal thing already. Didn't quite work as planned. So, let's try another way of fixing things-less government, less welfare, less Kumbaya, less evil.

"to call an illegal immigrant an "undocumented alien" is the same as calling a streetcorner drug dealer an "unlicensed pharmacist".

"You spend your money anyway you want and respect other's rights to do the same"

The PC blinders are in full virtual reality mode, the libs and MSM will only see what they want to see and implimenting PC policies thus guaranteeing this recession will turn into a Depression.

Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, starving the poor one gallon of ethanol at a time. Fill your tank with E85 and cull a village.

What Norris and Uchitelle of the NY Times were talking about were essentially the myths of the Great Depression that we were taught in school.

The facts conflict with their myth.

Uchitelle: "panic reminiscent of the Great Depression."

Even during the height of this panic people were not on bread lines, jumping out of windows, and without basic essentials. Not even close!

Norris: "lessons of the '30's was to put ideology aside and do whatever you needed to bail out businesses."

The lesson of the 1930's was that the more government interferred the worse the financial situation became.

Uchitelle: "it took the U.S. 2-3 years until FDR took office and more than 2 years into The Great Depression before government stepped in an acted."

I would suggest that this supposed expert in economics history go back to school. Under Hoover government stepped in immediately with massive government intervention that took a market that slid from 321 down below 100. at the time we were NOT in a depression. When FDR took office he went on a binge of reckless government programs - some against the advice of most of his advisors - which took a deep recession and turned it into The Great Depression. Unemployment has gone up to 6.5% - the unemployment related to Carter's stagflation went over 11% - and the Great Depression went up under FDR to a sustained level of over 20% for years. So enough of the mindless hyperbole by the tabloid idiots at the Times.

Uchitelle: "2 or 3 years ago government intervention was thought to be the problem"

It was. The free market was affected by reckless government interference with forcing the banks to give mortgages to people who would not ordinarily qualify in the name of equal rights. That led to unfettered support of ACORN and allowing Fannie and Freddie to give out mortgages to these people more and more which led us to this problem. It was not a lack of government regulation - it was unethical and incompetent behavior by our government.

In watching "The Office of The President-Elect" Obama in his news conference I am reminded of one more thing. A major problem was the conflict Hoover and FDR had in the transition that help to intensify the economic problem. I had a hint that Obama might challenge Bush before he takes office. This could be interesting.

What these two clowns would find out if they went back to school is that The Great Depression was only resolved by our entry into World War II.