Some Things Never Change

A short piece from Catherine Rampell with the Economix blog at the NYTimes:

I took that photo at the Museum of the City of New York, at its exhibit on the history of New York’s banks. The quotation sure sounds a lot like some of the prose used to describe the excesses of the recent credit bubble. (Except maybe the “over ploughing” bit, now that we’re no longer an agrarian economy.)

Such similarities are no accident, given that The New York Herald ran that stark assessment during the Panic of 1837, which was also a result of a major real estate bubble and banking crisis.

In fact, one of more striking things about that museum exhibit was just how often the United States used to experience these major panics and depressions. There were financial crises in America designated as “the Panic of [year]” in 1792, 1796-97, 1819, 1837, 1857, 1873, 1884, 1893, 1896, 1901, 1907, 1910 and 1929 (which led to the decade-long Great Depression).

More here.