People living in years before the Great Depression probably didn’t realize their world had gone crazy.

In hindsight, how could they miss it? Historical statistics explain the crisis of the 1930s by showing with brutal clarity that financiers and industrialists bought the government and bent it to their will, redistributing the country’s wealth upward into their own pockets and leaving regular Americans panting desperately behind. But as people became more and more insecure, they listened to what politicians and the media told them: that the country was doing wonderfully. If they weren’t, it was either their own fault, or that of immigrants and minorities who were taking their jobs. And people made due on a little less every day, finding they could take a few more hits if only they gritted their teeth a little more. Continue reading