And now the Great Depression

Absorbing the shock is more difficult this time because it is internal to the financial system. Central to the problem are excessive leverage, opacity, and risk taking in the financial sector itself. There has been a housing-market collapse, but in contrast to the 1930s there has been no general collapse of prices and economic activity.

Some good remarks, but I think this guy's read on history is wanting:

That said, we are not going to see 25% unemployment rates like those of the Great Depression. Then it took breathtaking negligence by the Fed, the Congress and the Hoover Administration to achieve them.

The Fed did far from nothing. It is easy to Monday-morning quarterback and say "ah ha, you didn't do enough to prevent the turmoil!" But few even ask if that turmoil could -- or should -- be prevented. Allowing bad debts to be flushed out and wasteful industries to be reconfigured or eliminated seems to be ruled out, out of hand.