We need to learn from the past

I found an interesting article on Clark Howard’s website comparing the economic crisis that we have now to one back in the 1800’s:

Learning from financial calamities of the 1800’s

During the past few weeks, Clark has been telling you that the United States had several financial calamities throughout the 1800s. It’s been more than 30 years since he studied that material in college, so he brushed up on his history to give you a feel for where we are today.

Today, our unemployment rate is above 6%. It may climb to 8.5% or higher. That means 9 million Americans won’t be able to find work immediately. But it will not be a time of starvation.

During the crash of 1893, unemployment was around 20%. There were no food stamps, no welfare and no medical assistance. You were on your own, left with the kindness of strangers.

I found an interesting article on Clark Howard’s website comparing our current economic crisis to one back in the 1800’s:

Modern American industry started around 1830. Over these past 178 years, we have had one difficulty followed by good times, then another rough patch followed by another smooth patch, so on and so on. But we will not have 20% unemployment or mass starvation.

Clark could bore you with the stats, but the point is if you read the history, yes, there are parallels to the past — excessive spending, corruption, speculation — but you can’t extrapolate and say that because we were in a Great Depression in the ’30s, we’ll automatically be heading into one again. You are only condemned to repeat history if you fail to learn from it.