People often mix up the 1929 crash with the great depression. Those things are related but not strongly so. A stock market crash does not lead to a major recession or depression.
The initial crash was worse in 1987 then in 1929. But in late 80s there was no recession.
So crashes are bad for people who have invested but it looks much more like a bubble in hindsight because of how it turned out. Lots of good companies were also destroyed in Great Depressions, companies, including banks that were mostly sound.
People always focus in the initial crash rather then the actual causes for long run recession. Those are related to monetary and fiscal policy more then anything else.
In the case of the 20s there were a number of very famous economists in the 20s who had warned that structural deflation was happening and that companies need to work together to combat the problem. And this is exactly why this crash turned into such a long term disaster.
So the real worry is not AI bubble but the response to any crash.
This one did result in a recession, during which some people who had lived through the Great Depression once again had to live about the same way again, for years, whether you wanted to call it another depression of not.
In 1987 and 2008 those were highly measurable stock drops but mostly concentrated in the stock markets themselves. Without as much consumer exposure, nor the world-destroying ripple effects from more dramatic drops over a longer period of time under conditions that were magnitudes more unstable worldwide.
> In 1987 and 2008 those were highly measurable stock drops but mostly concentrated in the stock markets themselves.
But my point is exactly, how do you know that 1929 wasn't just like them? My whole point is that what actually matters is what happens after the crash.
1929 was special because of structural issue in the inter-war central banking system, but the right action could still have result in a strong bounce back where by latest 1931 would have been done.
That is a good point, crashes are going to happen, and what occurs afterward is what counts the most.
I think what everyone still living can observe is what did actually happen after each crash, using after-the-fact well-curated data having good-to-moderate degrees of provenance.
Going back to 1929, very little first-hand observation from before the crash is still available, and most people at the time didn't understand the implications either. When I was growning up though, my neighborhood was crowded by people from all walks of life who had been through it, before, during, and after. I would say many of their experiences have been unpublished probably because lots of them were "unpublishable."
With 1973, I had already been a teenage stockbroker well before that and I remember it well. The Nixon shitshow had been building for years. Presidential malfeasance can do damage like few other things, even worse when it's a US President which puts the dollar itself at stake.
So my observation is what happens before the crash has more influence on what happens afterward, compared to the steepness of the crash itself.
In general I think the larger point is that the 'crash' is the point people in their mind associate it with the 'period after'. That is a sensible way for humans to think in most situation. And its not unreasonable for everyday people.
But if we are discussing economics we need to understand that the link between 'crash' and 'recession' is complex. You can have a country going into recession without a 'crash' and you can have a 'crash' without a recession.
The initial crash was worse in 1987 then in 1929. But in late 80s there was no recession.
So crashes are bad for people who have invested but it looks much more like a bubble in hindsight because of how it turned out. Lots of good companies were also destroyed in Great Depressions, companies, including banks that were mostly sound.
People always focus in the initial crash rather then the actual causes for long run recession. Those are related to monetary and fiscal policy more then anything else.
In the case of the 20s there were a number of very famous economists in the 20s who had warned that structural deflation was happening and that companies need to work together to combat the problem. And this is exactly why this crash turned into such a long term disaster.
So the real worry is not AI bubble but the response to any crash.