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Comparing Great Depression I with the current Great Depression II, the cause has been the same, and the responses have been similar.But it’s important to not take the parallels too far. The circumstances differ, so the impacts will differ.First, the similarities.Same Cause, Similar ResponsesBoth depressions, like recessions, originated with unsustainable booms.

Voluntary cooperation gets commandeered by the government gradually in peacetime, then suddenly through war.
Peace, then World War I
Starting in 1894, the USA no longer had a small-government major party. In both major parties, majorities of elected representatives were the USA’s crony-socialist Progressives.
Immediately, Progressives began working to consolidate their political control. They replaced voter-informing caucuses with voter-isolating primaries. They denigrated constitutionalist media and advocated “objectivity.” They cemented their influence through schools.
This being peacetime, it was more than a decade before Progressives before, in 1907, they first perceptibly started forcing down the relative amount of production that was voluntary, not government controlled (see figure

To prevent rail accidents like the one in East Palestine, dial back government regulation and allow the tort system to work.

Original Article: "Prevent Future Losses Like East Palestine by Reducing Regulation and Empowering Torts"

When the Boeing 737 MAX had two crashes, the usual suspects called for more regulation. It turns out that the crashes were due more to regulatory failure than anything else.

Original Article: "Boeing 737 MAX Disasters’ Root Cause Was Government Regulation"
This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.

On February 3, 2023, on Norfolk Southern Railway’s general merchandise freight train 32N, a suspect bearing on the twenty-third car measured at 38°F above ambient, then 103°F above ambient, then 253°F above ambient. In East Palestine, Ohio, eleven tank cars derailed and hazardous materials ignited.
First responders mitigated the fire, but afterward the temperature was still rising in one tank car that carried vinyl chloride liquid. Responders expanded the evacuation zone, dug ditches, released the vinyl chloride into the ditches, and burned it.
There’s a better way.
Vinyl chloride presents a complex real-world challenge. It’s efficiently produced using competitively priced feedstocks and energy. Its product, PVC, is safe in use, cost-effective, and valuable in important applications. But

On October 29, 2018, on Lion Air Flight 610 out of Jakarta, Indonesia, a Boeing 737 MAX’s safety control pushed the plane’s nose down hard, paused for five seconds, then repeated this cycle, over and over. The pilots fought to pull the nose back up, only to get overpowered again and again. The passengers fell back against their seats, then fell forward, over and over. The seconds stretched on across all these souls’ last moments alive.
On March 10, 2019, on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 out of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, another Boeing 737 MAX’s safety control operated in the same way and crashed this second flight.
Deadly consequences follow when simplicity, controllability, innovation, and safety take a back seat. This happens when regulation is done not through the relentless choices of

When a person is free to work, shop, and invest, he brings to each task his knowledge from doing the other tasks. As he works, he has a sense of what it takes to please customers, because he’s also a customer. As he shops, he has a sense of what workers can do for him, because he’s also a worker. As he invests, he has a sense of who adds value best, because he also works to add value and shops for value.

“If you don’t expect too much from meYou might not be let down.” — Gin Blossoms, “Hey Jealousy”
Inflation is a mechanism that government people use to fund wars, tyrannical governments, and favors to cronies. Inflation takes away significant fractions of the real value of savings.