we are so far from a great depression at this point that it is an insult to those who went through the great depression to compare the two.
Yes we far at the moment but .... jobs that were created in last decade or so to employ people left over due to outsourcing are all based on increased margins of products, houses, etc. Capital employment counterproductive. Not that newly created jobs did not add any value to the companies but were DECREASING value and productivity. Looks like to me western system reached extreme readings in inefficiency. One way or other something will have to give.
The only thing keeping us out of another GD is the fact that so many people are employed by the gov't or pseudo-gov't like teaching. When things get rough, the gov't just prints money, raises taxes, or both. If gov't was run like a private business, it would have had to shed hundreds of thousands of workers, abrogate ridiculous pensions, cut back on health insurance, and the unemployment rate would be 20%. There is no free lunch though. The result of this time may not be grandpa selling apples on a street corner or The Grapes of Wrath, but it will be bad - probably some sort of run on gov't debt and a collapse in the currency.
Unemployment inching closer (methodology for calculating unemployed has been modified significantly since 'Great Depression'): http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data
This article brought to you courtesy of green shoots media. The gov't computes unemployement numbers differently, the Dow, we have the PPT, to name two examples of apples vs oranges.
the same unemployment rate this time will not cause the same conditions because of government safety programs. my parents lived through the great depression on a farm in the midwest. when we get to the point where people are heating their homes with dried cow dung then you can start comparing conditions.