Blast back to the past

In the wake of today's economic recession, many worry that we are reliving the 1930s and the terror of the Great Depression all over again. Want to feel even closer to those fears? The author of this blog — "News from 1930" — reads the Wall Street Journal from the corresponding day in 1930 and summarizes it. Talk about a serious case of living in the past.

In explaining why he is keeping this blog, which he has been doing since last June, the author weaves a complicated web of optimism, a desire to predict the future and the hope of understanding the economic conditions we live in now. From his readings, he has found that to an extent, we view the past with too critical an eye. Though now we question what was going on with our government at the time, "It appears that the people in charge at the time were well aware of what was happening, and did most of the things that we're doing now to alleviate it." While it may be easy to look back and critically question the motives and effectiveness of leaders, what would a reader of the WSJ looking back 100 years from now have to say about our own little recession?