Are we just hearing a lot about the Great depression because it is a dramatic event that gets us to follow the news? Whether the New Depression turns out to be Great has to do with the length and depth which are hard to predict since human nature is a big element in the formula.
Often
people quote Einstein saying that doing the same thing over and over and
expecting a different result is one definition of insanity. I suspect he was thinking more of a
laboratory environment. If you heat
water to 212 degrees, it will boil every time.
No mystery there. If you hold
your pencil out to your side and let it go, it will fall to the floor. Again, no mystery. This assumes that other conditions are
normal, which they likely are in a laboratory but not as likely elsewhere.
But when you look at human nature, things are less predictable. What we are looking at now in our economic upheaval is the collected feeling and actions of all the people flavored with actions of the government. You can predict as well as any body else. The various media outlets are polling all the experts to demand and answers NOW! But this is because they have a lot of space to fill, not because the time is ripe for an answer.
My parents
were young adults during the real Great depression. My mother graduated from college in
1932. My father had been working a
little longer. In my memories of growing
up in the fifties, even though the Depression was over for twenty years, it was
still with us in their thinking, especially my mother. She was always thinking in terms of doing
without and being careful about managing things. It affected her thinking for the rest of her
life.
So when people try to predict when our current situation will improve, don’t look for a miracle cure tomorrow. And expect many people who have gotten burned this time to consider these things and be cautious about financial matters for as long as they live. It’s also good to remember that human nature isn’t nearly as predictable as physical science.
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