Depression offers lessons for financial crisis
They are the stories we heard from our grandparents, the pictures we studied in history books — bread lines stretching around street corners, shantytowns sheltering the unemployed, small-town banks with darkened windows.
Today's financial crisis is hardly that grim, though it does share some similarities with the economic collapse of the 1930s — both were preceded by a housing boom, a long period of cheap credit and a falling stock market. But those same similarities may offer some reassurance.
What was then economic calamity is today a history lesson. This time, America has been through it before, and there's a guide, at least for mistakes to be avoided as the nation's leaders try to prevent another catastrophe.
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Today's financial crisis is hardly that grim, though it does share some similarities with the economic collapse of the 1930s — both were preceded by a housing boom, a long period of cheap credit and a falling stock market. But those same similarities may offer some reassurance.
What was then economic calamity is today a history lesson. This time, America has been through it before, and there's a guide, at least for mistakes to be avoided as the nation's leaders try to prevent another catastrophe.