cheer up – this ain’t the ’20s!

Don’t get depressed, says Newsweek! The economy of 2008 is much different than that of 1929.

It’s understandable that we make comparisons to the Great Depression. Analogies help us place things in context. But very few of us actually lived through the Depression. Studs Terkel, the great chronicler of the voices of the Depression, died in October at 96. The historical distance from today to 1929 is as vast as the chasm separating 1929 from 1850.

It’s not that comparisons are made for comparisons sake, but lessons were learned from the Great Depression that are helping to protect us today. With no FDIC, some 4000 banks went under in the thirties. Today? 19. Perhaps one of the biggest things we have to be thankful for:

[A]fter the 1929 crash, the nation had to wait more than three years for a president who simply wasn’t up to the job to leave the scene. This time, we’ve got to wait only a few more months.