New to Us, Doesn't Mean its New

As I watched President Obama pitch the Stimulus Bill to the country, I noticed he said we were in "unprecedented times."  That's when I realized he was more of a salesman at that moment, trying to get the country behind the bill.  I also learned that night that the Stimulus Bill wasn't Bill Clinton's nickname, as I originally thought. ;-)  So I decided to take the whole "unprecedented times" phrase and do some research and I found the following paragraph:

"The causes of the economic crisis lay far deeper than in the complex processes of banking or in the faults of Federal administration of the finances.  But, as a man suddenly ill prefers to find for his ailment some recent and obvious cause, and is not convinced that its origin lay in old and continued habits of life, so the greater part of the American people and of their leaders believe this extraordinary crisis to be the result of financial blunders of the President's administration.  They believe that the new president could with a few strokes of his pen repair, if he pleased, those blunders and restore commercial confidence and prosperity.  This crisis became, and remain, the subject of political and partisan differences which obscure its real phenomena and causes."

Sound like they're talking about today?  This was written in 1888 and they were discussing the "Panic of 1837" which, at the time, was the worst economic crisis to hit our country.  The sitting president was Andrew Jackson and the new president was Martin Van Buren.  What were the causes?  There was an increased level of available credit which allowed states to fund the building of canals through the use of state-issued bonds.  Credit restrictions were gradually loosened and the speculative fever created a bubble that burst in May of 1837.  The Panic was followed by a 5 year depression, with the failure of banks and record high unemployment levels.  Kinda eerie, isn't it?  The Panic of 1873 had a major Wall Street brokerage firm go under that created panic in the markets.  The Panic of 1907 required a monetary bailout of Wall Street banks to ensure liquidity in the marketplace.  Human nature, if nothing else, is consistent.

Here is the list of Panics, Depressions and severe Recessions in our "boom-bust" economic cycles:

Panic of 1819, 1837, 1857, 1873, 1893 and 1907 (the Federal Reserve was created after this one)

Great Depression - 1930 (lasted 12 yrs, followed by 4 yrs of WWII)

Severe Recession 1980 (milder recessions in 1958 & 1974)

Severe Recession 2008 (milder recessions in 1991 & 2001)

As you can see, the Panics were like clockwork.  Things got spread out once we started putting different things in place, but they'll never go away.  As far as the Stimulus Package that's getting all the hoopla right now.  It's just the new, New Deal - government funded projects to help ease some pressure until the markets can correct themselves.  Government can't get us out of it, they never have and never will.  They have to tell us they can, so to keep us convinced of their importance.  How do I know?  Because these are VERY precedented times.