An increasing number of economists, world leaders and financial columnists are beginning to acknowledge that our current economic crisis bears a striking resemblance to what was going on about the time the Great Depression of the 1930s started. Just like the “Roaring 20s”, the American people over the last couple of decades have been getting into massive amounts of debt in pursuit of the American Dream. But just like the early 1930s, we are now experiencing a severe credit crunch and the process of deleveraging this gigantic mountain of debt promises to be at least as painful as the deleveraging that took place throughout the 1930s. It seems like almost everyone is using words like “double dip” and “recession” now, and a lot of analysts are even starting to utter even more dreaded words like “deflation” and “depression”. Even the Federal Reserve, usually one of the biggest cheerleaders for the economy, is now saying that the U.S. economic system may not recover for another five or six years. If that is what the Federal Reserve is admitting to, then how bad are things really? The truth is that it really is beginning to look a lot like 1930 out there. (Read More...)