Originally Posted by kane

It seems to me (and I'm not economist) that the major difference is that that now, nearly 80 years later, the banking and financial world has changed dramatically. Back then the market lost 12% of its value and all hell broke loose. Now the market is down about 40% from where it was about 15 months ago and while things are far from good, they are still plodding along.

They had different types of bank transactions back then but not as intricate and there weren't as many options or players in the financial world. Having these options could help us avoid this.

I think we will bottom out. It probably won't be until after the new year because right now people are focused on the holidays, but eventually people will really panic and stop spending money and we will bottom out and then things will start to rebound. There are a lot of things to compare to now to 1929, but we have a lot more workers, more money and more options available to us this time around. I think the key, like you said is the credit markets. The world finances run on credit and until those start to loosen up and people/companies can start to borrow money again, it will continue to get ugly. However I'm not sure 75% of us are fucked and 25% of us will die, nor do I think we will enter into a great depression. Too many countries rely on us for that to happen.

All that said I think unless something happens like the president saying they will get the money to the automakers or some kind of deal being struck we may see the largest one day drop in history today. People have been worried, but every time there has been trouble there has been a bailout. If they deny the auto makers it may signal that the bailouts are at an end and this will cause some panic.