I don't think the 1930s are a good comparison to the current crisis.

Total US debt to GDP (private and public sector) is about double what it was back then and if you count the present value of the unfunded liabilities then you can double that again.

So, the key differences are:-

1 Back then the debt was still small enough have a fair crack at paying it back, demographics were positive, natural resources plentiful, huge domestic manufacturing capacity existed and the population was used to hardship.

Now the debt is way too big, the demographics are against us, we're about at Peak Oil, the manufacturing base has been decimated and the population feels entitled to a free lunch and votes accordingly.

2 We were on a gold standard back then, now we're all on fiat money, so there is nothing to stop them continuing to paper over the cracks and kick the can down the road. Ben Bernanke has learnt the lessons of the 1930s and isn't going to repeat the "mistakes". He has a printing press and is using it and will go on doing so.

The Fed exists to preserve the banking system, it is their primary objective. They will print what ever it takes to maintain the solvency of the system. Much better for a bank to lose a percentage each year in real terms on its loan book through inflation than to lose the lot through massive defaults and go out of business. Defaults redistribute wealth from creditors (banks) to debtors (people). Given that the banks own the central bank who prints the money, which route do you think they're going to take?

In the words of Jim Sinclair, this is "QE to infinity" and can only lead to eventual hyperinflation. Whether that means Weimar Republic style or just 20, 30 or 40%pa for a decade I don't know. I am convinced that free market forces, which would give us sharply higher interest rates, mass defaults and a debt implosion, will not be allowed to run their course.

The last crisis was triggered by the real estate bubble bursting and money flowed into sovereign bond markets as safe havens. The next crisis comes when the markets recognise that Governments are insolvent and the sovereign bonds markets collapse. It's already happening in the EU. Where do you run? Into the dollar, backed only by an insolvent Government running a $1.5trillion deficit, with a moribund economy about to face Peak Oil and a demographic headwind?

No, you go into hard assets, anything but paper backed by nothing but empty promises. Gold, silver, the miners, energy, farmland etc... We're in the right place...just need to balls to stay there...