[lbo-talk] comparisons

[Doug Henwood]

Poking around the web, I'm still seeing comparisons of the present  
financial crisis to 1929. A few comparisons might be in order. The  
following table shows the change in industrial production, the stock  
market (S&P 500), and the unemployment rate from the pre-crisis peak  
to roughly a year later. The peaks were Sept 1929 and July 2007. The  
later dates are July 1930 and May 2008 for IP; Sept 1930 and July  
2008 for stocks. There weren't monthly unemployment numbers in  
1929-30, so I've used the annual averages; for 2007-8, the points of  
comparison are July 2007 and June 2008.

             1929-30    2007-8
IP           -20.7%    -1.0%
stocks       -33.9%   -17.6%
unempl        +5.5%    +0.8%