What stands between us and GD II

If not for what we've learned, we'd now be reliving the Great Depression ...

It’s 1930 time - Paul Krugman Blog - NYTimes.com

.... What Eichengreen-O’Rourke show, it seems to me, is that knowledge is the only thing standing between us and Great Depression 2.0. It’s only to the extent that we understand these things a bit better than our grandfathers — and that we act on that knowledge — that we have any real reason to think this time will be better...

Except it would much worse today. The world population in 1930 was 2 billion, now we're about 6.8 billion. Our resources are more depleted, we're more dependent on agricultural trade. The cost of Havoc, of weapons of mass destruction, is far lower than in 1930.

We're not smarter than the leadership of 1930. We have the advantage of their mistakes, and the fortune that the GOP is out of power.