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Justin Fox posted this chart yesterday showing job losses (so far) during the current recession compared to job losses during the Great Depression.  It’s a pretty good panic corrective, showing just how far away we are from the problems of the 30s.

It’s also, I think, a tribute to how much more we know about the economy these days than we did back then.  Sure, it often seems as if we’re still so far in the dark we can barely see our own hands in front of our faces, but the fact is that we’re doing pretty well despite the fact that our underlying problems are probably every bit as severe as the imbalances that caused the Great Depression.

Consider, after all, that our response to the Depression appears to have been 180 degrees wrong.  We literally did almost everything possible to make it worse: we tightened the money supply, balanced the budget, raised interest rates, passed protectionist legislation, and allowed banks to fail by the hundreds.  It escalated a panic into a Depression.

And this time around?  Just the opposite: interest rates are close to zero, we’re running an enormous budget deficit, protectionism has largely been kept at bay, money is being pumped into the economy prodigiously, and with the notable exception of Lehman Brothers banks are being saved right and left.  These actions have reduced a panic to a severe recession.

If we had taken the same policy actions that Hoover and Mellon took in the 30s, does anyone doubt that the results would have been another Great Depression?  I don’t.  We may still be doing a lot of dumb things, but we’re an awful lot smarter than we were 80 years ago.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

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And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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