A happy shout out to economic historian Price Fishback for reminding us in a piece published in the New York Times that, as bad as things may now seem in the economy, they are nowhere near as bad as during the great depression of the 1930′s in the US.

He begins by saying that economic cycles and downturns are a natural part of the economic cycle [and "nature's" cycle], but that we may be more sensitive to them now because  the big downturns have been coming less frequently since the 1980′s. In other words, we may have gotten a little spoiled and less used to the hardships of the normal business cycle [this lag in business cycles may have something to do with the increasingly loose monetary policy of the last several decades, which climaxed during the reign of "Bubbles" Greenspan].

And according to the theories of Soviet economist Nikolai Kondratiev on the nature of economic supercycles, we are basically due for another big downturn in the world economy. In other words, this is all part of the divine plan and this too shall pass.

But comparison with the Great Depression just doesn’t hold up. Yes the stock market is [...]