It may not take 9,080 days, but…
The U.S. stock market didn’t hit the peak it achieved in 1929 again until 1954 (9,080 days from September 3, 1929 to November 23, 1954). The recovery didn’t really begin until the build up for the Second World War began in 1939. But what’s most instructive about this is less which government policies worked or ...
The U.S. stock market didn’t hit the peak it achieved in 1929 again until 1954 (9,080 days from September 3, 1929 to November 23, 1954). The recovery didn’t really begin until the build up for the Second World War began in 1939. But what’s most instructive about this is less which government policies worked or did not, but that the economy we had at the far end was utterly transformed.
Think of it: by 1952 the United States had become a superpower, the world had been divided into east and west, and the economy had seen the advent of the nuclear age, the beginning of the computer era, the emergence of the multinational corporation, the first stirrings of the service economy. The United States of 1952 did not look very much like 1929 Washington. Now, we’re not expecting a 23-year recovery cycle here, but we should consider how the U.S. economy and the world are likely to be different in say five to seven years which is probably the earliest we might expect returning to all the pre-crisis levels.
It’s going to be very different and we ought to be leading the receiver (to use a football term) on this one, spending for what we will become rather than struggling to preserve what we will never be again.
OFF/AFP/Getty Images
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