The slipperier slope? The Great Depression vs Now.

A study by economists Barry Eichengreen & Kevin H. O’Rourke compares several global economic factors during the great depression and now in an effort to more accurately categorize the current financial situation. The article contains some very compelling graphs, which I would recommend seeing in the context of the article itself.

To sum up, globally we are tracking or doing even worse than the Great Depression, whether the metric is industrial production, exports or equity valuations. Focusing on the US causes one to minimize this alarming fact. The “Great Recession” label may turn out to be too optimistic. This is a Depression-sized event.

They do a great job of distilling some wonkish concepts down into an easily digestible format. Granted, I'm no economist, but it seems like these factors would be somewhat likely ones to compare given the nature of our situation... why haven't these numbers been crunched already?

I for one would be interested in seeing this comparison made concerning the percentage of unemployment in the industrialized world, since employment stats seem to be drug out first when it comes to classifying recessions vs. depressions in the US. It would seems like a bit of apples and oranges given all the differences between the world then and now, but no more so than the world trade statistics graphed in the article.

[LINK]