The Real Great Depression

I recently stumbled upon this interesting article by Scott Reynolds Nelson, a history professor at the College of William and Mary and Williamsburg, VA. It compares the current financial crisis not to the stock market crash of 1929, but to the Panic of 1873 and subsequent 4-year depression that followed. There are a surprisingly large number of parallels to our current situation, even from over 125 years ago, most poignantly being the unregulated issuance of mortgages in Europe that ultimately led to a liquidity crisis and meltdown of hundreds of banks. The author also attributes many events in the following decades to stem from this (brush off the dust from your American and world history knowledge, folks):

- The Gilded Age, including the reign of Rockefeller, Carnegie, and others
- Anti-Semitism in Russia and Eastern Europe
- Increased religious fundamentalism
- Collapse of unions
- 1877 railroad strike

You can extrapolate from there, to see the ramifications of this depression in decades to come...