Greed Goeth Before a Crash?

If you haven't seen it yet, check the episode schedule and make sure you don't miss the History Channel's "Crash: The Next Great Depression?".

This one-hour special looks at the current economic meltdown in the US and compares and contrasts it with what led up to the Great Depression, the 1929 Crash, its immediate aftermath and what helped to bring us out of the Depression. Threading first person accounts with expert interviews, the special lets viewers understand how much history is repeating itself and what does history tell us about our future?

Tonight, it followed (appropriately enough) the "Greed" episode of the History Channel's series The Seven Deadly Sins.

It compares the 1929 crash with the 2008 Meltdown, and points out too many parallels to count — from the rampant deregulation and wealth concentration that preceded the 1929 crash, to a do-nothing Hoover administration determined to let the market work itself out — between what happened then and what's happening now. (The footage of Phil Gram quoting Abraham Lincoln even as he, back in 2000, made sure that the credit swaps that helped drive this meltdown stayed unregulated.)

Beyond that, it echoed just about everything progressives have been saying about the route causes of the current crisis, and the best way out of it. From what I can tell, its only flaw is that it payed at least a few minutes of lip service to conservatives' collective case of New Deal Denialism. At least that's what jumped out at me.

Still, it's definitely worth seeing. In fact, it's worth calling the rest of the family into the room to watch it, and calling your friends and telling them to watch it.

Views expressed on this page are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Campaign for America's Future or Institute for America's Future