From Pragmatic Capitalism:

I wouldn't know what one looks like, so who am I to question someone who has lived through an actual depression (via Richard Russell):

"The signs are growing. I can see the signs in the number of vagrants in La Jolla and south in Pacific Beach. As I drive by, I see little clusters of men and women (mostly men) huddled in doorways or sitting in the bushes beside the roads. These are vagrants, always a sign of a severe recession. Men holding cardboard signs stand by the side of the road. The signs read, 'Vet needs work' or 'Single mom needs food for her three children.'

Where do these people live? I wonder, where do they sleep? How do they have the energy to stand in the blaring sun all day with their cardboard signs?

But they are the signs of hard times. I've seen them before – in the 1930s...

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The great Richard Russell's take on Ben Bernanke and gold