Lessons from the Depression shape Obama policy

[steven johnson]

I am irritated by pundits who ignore Bush's six times greater stock value fall or the failure of 'supply side' Reaganomics.

Obama has world experts on the Great Depression in his administration. I think we should give them a chance.

The key architects of U.S. economic policy have spent much of their lives studying the mistakes blamed for the Great Depression, and they are determined not to repeat them.
For Ben S. Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, and Christina D. Romer, the White House economic adviser — two leading scholars on what went wrong in the 1930s — the biggest lessons include: "Don’t scrimp on revitalizing the economy" and "Don’t close the lending or spending taps until recovery is firmly in place."


..for many Europeans the lasting memory is of German hyperinflation after World War I.

The consequence may be that U.S. policy errs on the side of doing too much, risking a bout of inflation, while Europe’s response may be too tepid, which could lengthen the recession.


http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/03/15/business/econ.php