you will lose these things in the next great depression

[Mortblanc]

The Great Depression was far enough before the article writer's time to not have any connection between imagination and history. This twirp's greatest fear is that he will lose his video game time!

First off, they always write about and show pictures of the poor and unemployed and homeless, never mentioning that 80% of the population still had jobs, still had homes and still had money to spend.

Second, This writer has lost touch with reality of todays work load. As a self employed person I was already working 16 hour days and never taking vacations back in the 1980s and 1990s which everyone considers fantastic times! Fery few successful people in any era have worked 8 hour days, had weekends off, taken long holidays and gotten rich!

And the bit about no leisure time!!!! Some of the greatest literature, theatre and music we have came out of the last great depression!

Leisure time is what you do with the moments you have free! Personally, I have traveled more during this recession than before due to the reduced travel rates I have found.

Over here the actual unemployment rate, all people total out of work, is higher than it was in the GD.

The banking industry DID collapse, and the safeguards imposed after the last GD insured our deposits as was intended.

The social safety net we installed in the past 70 years eliminated the hobo, the migrant worker and the displaced homeless of the last GD.

We have just gone through a depression as intense as what happened in the 1930s, but few people realize the GD of the 1930s was not the worst the U.S. economy has suffered. Our nation has gone through at least 5 huge recessions and the one that occurred from 1836-1846 (yes that was eighteen hundreds) was worse than any before or since.

All the previous depressions were soaked up by our frontier. If one failed one could always move west. Bug out overnight with wife and kids, change the name and start over! No SSI number to track you, no credit report, no DNA and no finger print records.

Many of our leading frontier citizens were only one step ahead of the law most of their days

Most people in the U.S. can not imagine going through one of these recession cycles with no bankrupcy laws in force and debtor's prison and the workhouse/poorhouse just around the corner.