From Market Watch:

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Lately, whenever the market has a bad day, the reflex among financial-news editors is to compare our current situation with 1987 and wonder if a “Black Monday”-style crash is on the horizon.

But some observers draw a darker metaphor, noting that much of what we are seeing now also took place in 1929. As we know, that meltdown — unlike the 1987 crash — was not followed by a happy ending, but rather by a decade of poverty, shantytowns and sporadic famine.

Popular imagination has the Great Depression opening with a bang in October 1929. We forget that even by December of that year, the market had no idea what was really in store. After a period of wild, bipolar volatility, stocks had taken two big tumbles (a 12.8% drop on Oct. 28 and an 11.7% fall the next day) while the top bankers and “captains of industry” rushed to shore up the market. By November, the Dow had hit its low for the year at 198, down from the giddy September high of 381.

But, the financial pundits and government leaders of the day insisted, the economy’s fundamentals were still strong. Mass unemployment was, some months after the crash, still just something that went on in Germany and Britain. America was strong and merely needed a push to keep the financial markets from harming the broader economy.

With that in mind, Herbert Hoover — only nine months into his presidency — assembled leaders from the public and private sectors to create an economic-stimulus package. Among the measures, Time magazine reported at the time, was a promise from Congress to offer bipartisan support for a tax-cut package. The proposal called for $160 million in tax relief — only about $22 billion if adjusted against the gross domestic product at the time, and therefore much smaller than the plan under consideration here in 2008. Read Time’s original coverage of the plan.
Also on the table was an assurance from the Federal Reserve that it would provide cheaper credit. Granted, the Fed had much less power over the money supply in those days, mainly because the amount of liquidity it could create was limited by the supply of gold it held to back the dollar.

Of course, there were a litany of public-works projects, plans for new corporate investments, and even a promise by Henry Ford to raise wages at his auto plants.

None of this worked. What was first seen as speed bump to the expansion of American finance became something much larger. The Dow continued falling, hitting 157 in 1930, 73 in 1931 and finally a mere 41 points in 1932. It did not reach its 1929 high again until 1954, a generation later.

Certainly, our economy now has far more differences than similarities with the economy of 1929, and few expect a new depression for the decade ahead. But it’s also worth remembering that the best laid plans of presidents, chief executives and senators can sometimes come to nothing.

This man has come out of no-where with a message of less government. While he and Fred Thompson agree on this, Ron Paul’s message is considerably more Libertarian, and thus he has gained an insane following. If he keeps earning money from supporters like he is, chances are he’ll make the Republicans face that he is the only candidate for the position. Secretly, I think the Republican agenda is to not allow him to win in the primaries. The Democrats also really don’t want him to win in the primaries because he is anti-war which has been the Democrats main push or difference they push on why their party is the one to vote on. So, if you have a moderate Republican that is a non-moonbat, is anti-war, and talks about libertarian ideals and sweeping changes, chances are he’ll take a lot of moderate democrats that are on the fence.

So it boils down to: we have an underdog who no one in the higher up government or either party really want to win. And what do we like here in America? Underdogs. But don’t let me tell you about how I’ve been swayed to support Ron Paul, take a moment to look at him on his issues.

http://www.ronpaul2008.com and if you can spare some change - send him money on the 16th - the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party.

Well I’ve signed up to help out and you’ll most likley see me posting about the candidates but I’m hoping that Fred gets the republican ticket. Anyway, here it is, the Fred ‘08 Web 2.0 button.

If you’d like the PSD file let me know. I may be re-working it as its not quite what I want but good enough for now. I’ve actually made a dark PSD file and a light one and I’ll prob. rework a coulpe others for use as well. email pylorns at gmail dot com .