it should be stressed that a fall of the SM is not the same thing as a depression (though probably all the LBO talkers knew that). After all, the SM fell in 1987 without depressing the US economy. It's true that conditions outside of Wall Street are much worse now than in 1987 (especially outside the US), but we don't know how resilient the US economy is.
and as my comment to Louis this morning concerning the capitalist manifestarian suggested, a depression can easily bring out the Tim McVeighs of the world (and not the AOL-outed gay one) rather than induce progressive change. It'd be nice if the old "the worse the better" slogan worked. But it doesn't.
Jim Devine jdevine at popmail.lmu.edu & http://clawww.lmu.edu/Departments/ECON/jdevine.html