User:JCDenton2052/mh3

Late-2000s recession/Comparisons with the Great Depression

Although some casual comparisons between the late 2000s recession and the Great Depression have been made, there remain large differences between the two events. For example, over the 79 years between 1929 and 2008, great changes occurred in economic philosophy and policy, the stock market has not fallen as far as it did in 1932 or 1982, the 10-year price-to-earnings ratio of stocks is not as low as the 30s or 80s, but is 20% below average, inflation-adjusted U.S. housing prices in March 2009 were higher than any time between 1890 and 2000 (including the housing booms of the 1970s and 80s), the recession of the early 30s lasted over three and a half years, and during the 1930s the supply of money (currency plus demand deposits) fell by 25% (where as in 2008 and 2009 the Fed "has taken an ultraloose credit stance"). However, economist Paul Krugman writes that "It turns out, however, that preventing depressions isn’t that easy after all. Under Mr. Bernanke’s leadership, the Fed has been supplying liquidity like an engine crew trying to put out a five-alarm fire, and the money supply has been rising rapidly. Yet credit remains scarce, and the economy is still in free fall." CNET journalist Dawn Kawamoto writes that "The rate of decline is mimicking that of the Dow during the Great Depression." Phil Dow, a market strategist for RBC Dain Rauscher & James writes that "It's very troubling if you have a mirror image." but "believes distinctions exist between the current market malaise and that of yesteryear." Floyd Norris, chief financial correspondent for The New York Times, wrote in a New York Times blog on March 5, 2009 that "The 1929 crash got off to a much faster start, but we have now more or less caught up." He points out that the 2008-2009 fall in the Dow Jones Industrial Average is the third worst behind 1931-1932 and 1930-1932. Furthermore, the unemployment rate in 2008 and early 2009 and the rate at which it rose was comparable to most of the recessions occurring after World War II, and was dwarfed by the 25% unemployment rate peak three years into the Great Depression. Tatom writes that "If the unemployment rate rises to 9.2 percent or more before it ends, it would be worse than in any postwar recession." As of February 2009, U-3 unemployment stands at 8.1%. Additionally, in March 2009, statistician John Williams "argue[d] that measurement changes implemented over the years make it impossible to compare the current unemployment rate with that seen during the Great Depression". He claims that unemployment would be at 19.1% if measured the same way it was during the Great Depression.

Price-to-earnings ratios have yet to drop as low as in previous recessions. Some journalists and economists argue that they may have further to fall. Levi Folk writes in the Financial Post that "The average market bottom CAPE in the past 15 economic recessions was 10.8, which is slightly lower than current levels. In a worstcase scenario, investors could see a 34% fall in the S&P 500 to match the bottom of the CAPE in the Great Depression." Fund Manager William Browder writes that "Although one might be attracted by the 59% decline in the MSCI World Index in the last 16 months, its trailing P/E ratio of 10.7 times earnings is not yet particularly cheap in the context of a global crisis. In 1920, the S&P bottomed at 5x trailing earnings, in 1932 at 5.5 times and in 1982 it hit 7.2 times. In other words, there is little evidence to suggest the markets have found a bottom at these levels." On this issue, "it is critically important, though, to recognize that different analysts have different earnings expectations, and the consensus view is more often wrong than right." Some argue that price-to-earnings ratios remain high because of unprecedented falls in earnings.

On November 15, 2008, best selling author and SMU economics professor Ravi Batra said he is "afraid the global financial debacle will turn into a steep recession and be the worst since the Great Depression, even worse than the painful slump of 1980-1982 that afflicted the whole world". In 1978, Batra' book The Downfall of Capitalism and Communism was published. His first major prediction came true with the collapse of Soviet Communism in 1990. His second major prediction for a financial crisis to engulf the capitalist system seems to be unfolding since 2007 with increasing attention being paid to his work.

Nobel Prise winning Economist Paul Krugman predicted a series of depressions in his Return to Depression Economics (2000), based on "failures on the demand side of the economy." On January 5, 2009, he wrote that "preventing depressions isn’t that easy after all" and that "the economy is still in free fall." In March 2009, Krugman explained that a major difference in this situation is that the causes of this financial crisis were from the shadow banking system. "The crisis hasn't involved problems with deregulated institutions that took new risks... Instead, it involved risks taken by institutions that were never regulated in the first place."

On January 4, 2009, Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman wrote that "This looks an awful lot like the beginning of a second Great Depression." and "So this is our moment of truth. Will we in fact do what’s necessary to prevent Great Depression II?" On March 2, 2009, he wrote that "the odds that this slump really will turn into Great Depression II keep rising." On January 20, Paul Volcker, chairman of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, said "I don't remember any time, maybe even in the Great Depression, when things went down quite so fast, quite so uniformly around the world." On January 24 Edmund Conway, Economics Editor for The Daily Telegraph, wrote that "The plight facing Britain is uncannily similar to the 1930s, since prices of many assets - from shares to house prices - are falling at record rates, but the value of the debt against which they are held remains unchanged." On February 10, Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families of the United Kingdom, said that "I think that this is a financial crisis more extreme and more serious than that of the 1930s and we all remember how the politics of that era were shaped by the economy." On February 11, South Africa's Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said that "what started as a financial crisis might well become a second Great Depression." On February 20, investor George Soros said that "The problem itself is larger than it was in the 30s." and "The closest comparison that I can think of is actually the collapse of the Soviet system." On February 21 Yale economics professor Robert J. Shiller wrote that "The Great Depression does appear genuinely relevant. The bursting of twin bubbles in the stock and real estate markets, accompanied by huge failures of financial institutions and a drop in confidence, has no more recent example than that of the 1930s." On February 22, NYU economics professor Nouriel Roubini said that "This could become as bad as the Great Depression." On March 5, he wrote that "The scale and speed of synchronized global economic contraction is really unprecedented (at least since the Great Depression)." On March 9, journalist Chris Jansing of NBC covered a tent city in Sacramento, California. She described "images, hauntingly reminescent of the iconic photos of the 1930s and the Great Depression" and "evocative Depression-era images." On March 10, journalist Nicholas von Hoffman wrote in The Nation that "Whether the odds are one in six or five or four, we could be looking at a 20 percent unemployment rate in ten months' time. The atmospherics are right for a typhoon of misery on a scale of that which Americans suffered in the early 1930s." On March 17, Vice President Joe Biden said that President Barack Obama "has inherited the most difficult first 100 days of any president, I would argue, including Franklin Roosevelt." and “Let me explain what I mean by that. It was clear the problem Roosevelt inherited. This is a more complicated economic [problem]. We’ve never ever been here before – here or in the world. Never ever been here before."