Every time history repeats itself the price goes up.
--Unknown Author
Here is a link with some fascinating snippets from leading newspapers in the years 1929-33.
http://www.nowandfutures.com/great_depression.htmlBottom callers, 1929:
.....Brokers Believe Worst Is Over and Recommend Buying of Real Bargains
Wall Street in looking over the wreckage of the week, has come generally to the opinion that high grade investment issues can be bought now, without fear of a drastic decline. There is some difference of opinion as to whether not the correction must go further, but everyone realizes that the worst is over, and that there are bargains for those who are willing to buy conservatively and live through the immediate irregularity....
-- New York Herald Tribune, October 27, 1929
England then, US now:
"...Great Britain is a highly populated industrial country, carrying a terrific burden of internal debt, dependent predominantly for existence on foreign trade, enjoying the benefits of being the world's chief banking centre, possessed of a large net income from long-term investments abroad, but heavily indebted (in her role as world's banker) to other centres on short- term account."
-- Economist, September 26, 1931, p. 548
Forgotten lesson?:
"In 1920 and 1921 the foreign governments and business were slow to realize that our era of taxpayers' largess was over; but by 1922 they came to understand it, and the whole problem took another complexion. A boom began in foreign loans with the offer by foreign countries of extravagant interest to private lenders, from 5 to 8 per cent per annum.
"These loans soon began to raise disturbing questions as to their security, their reproductive character, and the methods of promotion.
To serve any good purpose, such loans had to be adequately secured and should increase the productivity of the country of their destination. Out of such increases alone could they be repaid. Loans used for military purposes, for balancing budgets, and for non productive purposes generally would be disastrous."
-- Memoirs of Herbert Hoover, U.S. President 1928-1932