This Is How The Next Great Depression Starts Warns Economist | George Selgin

Fragile gold standard unraveling

The interwar gold standard was designed to economize on gold but collapsed when international cooperation broke down in the late 1920s, triggering a global contraction in money supplies and credit.

US banking system collapse

The weak pre-FDIC system saw thousands of banks fail annually throughout the 1920s, accelerating dramatically after the 1929 crash and compounding the monetary contraction.

Tariffs aggravated existing crises

While Smoot-Hawley and retaliatory tariffs worsened the downturn, they aggravated existing monetary and banking failures rather than single-handedly causing the depression.

New Deal programs largely failed

The National Recovery Administration's price-fixing cartels worsened unemployment, and the Federal Reserve failed to offset monetary collapse during the 1930s.

WWII provided only temporary relief

Military enlistment and war production temporarily masked unemployment, but experts feared the depression would return when troops demobilized and defense orders dried up in 1945.

Post-war private investment boom

Real recovery began when regime uncertainty ended, anti-business policies were repealed, and private investment 'took off like a rocket' after 1945 without massive fiscal stimulus.

Regime uncertainty suppresses growth

Current tariff wars and geopolitical conflict in Iran create policy uncertainty that drags on hiring and investment, mirroring the New Deal era's business hesitation.

Oil shocks threaten stagflation

With oil near $100 per barrel and potential Strait of Hormuz closures, inflation will likely exceed the Fed's 2% target through supply constraints that monetary policy cannot easily fix.

Fed faces impossible trade-off

Attempting to fight supply-driven inflation through rate hikes could easily trigger recession, repeating the Federal Reserve's error during the 2008 oil shock.