In regards to doom and gloom, the one thing I am certain is that people will continue to consume, heat their homes and drive their cars and the government better do their best to keep it that way, that is if they know what is good for them. They better make sure that we never ever approach anything even close to the last depression, as people now and then are all together different and the last depression would have been a walk in the park compared to what it would be like now, as tolerance is no longer in existence, not to mention that a good portion of the population is armed to their teeth and then some, the results would not be pretty at all.
The great recession has shaped at lest two generations the way the great depression shaped a couple of generations.
My parents were products of the depression and it shaped the rest of their lives and rubbed off on my.
Generation X is probably most shaped and affected by the great recession. It hit them in their growth years. They will be playing catch-up much of the rest of their lives.
Actually, we have social programs in place today that help ease the damage of a depression. I think that what we experienced in 2008/09 was a depression. Without those programs we would have been a lot more like the depression.
We were fortunate to have social programs in place to help folks out, but we really experienced a terrible period there.
A lot of folk lost their homes, and many more only saved them through creative government programs that bailed them out.