The damage caused by high taxation during the Great Depression is the real lesson we should learn.

WSJ: Arthur B. Laffer: Taxes, Depression, and Our Current Troubles

Spain expects unemployment, already the worst in the developed world, to go over 24% this year, about the same experienced by the United States during the Great Depression.

CNN: Europe's pain is coming America's way

The four-day trading hiatus since the twin towers of the World Trade Center imploded on Tuesday morning has been the longest break in the U.S. since the special banking holidays ordered by Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the Great Depression.

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One hotly contested idea in the U.S. and Europe lately, and once advocated by John Maynard Keynes during the Great Depression, is a financial transactions tax imposing a cost on buys and sells of stocks or bonds.

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The game was introduced by Parker Brothers in 1935 during the heart of the Great Depression.

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Lott explains that in 5 of the last 6 financial crises, excluding only the Great Depression itself, booming economic growth during the recovery exceeded the decline in the previous recession by 6 percentage points.

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The research mentioned above is also validated by examining the historical marketing data for companies that thrived during the Great Depression.

FORBES: The Economy - An Excuse of Convenience

National Donut Day was first launched in 1938 by the Salvation Army in an effort to help the needy during the Great Depression, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

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