Mike, you missed the point. We don't need to approach the kind of insane numbers that hit Germany in the years preceding the raise of Nazism, in order to still have a severe crisis with devastating consequences.

Take a look at how FDR's "we'll spend our way out of the depression" sank the United States into a deeper depression.

The leading economic indicators right now show that while we're experiencing a small (and I do mean small) recovery, it is somewhat artificial, and that 2011 and 2012 are looking far more severe than anything we've had in the last 2 years.