April 27 (Bloomberg) -- To understand why today’s crisis
is a truly terrible thing to waste, consider the Panic of 1873,
says Richard Florida
in his latest ode to economic innovation,
“The Great Reset.”
That distant crisis boiled up from a sadly familiar bust in mortgages and building in Europe. It then rolled across the Atlantic to the U.S., where Jay Cooke & Co. collapsed, triggering the fall of other financial firms. The Long Depression had begun. Iron mills shut down; railroads went bankrupt; jobs evaporated, sowing hunger and homelessness. The economy contracted for 65 months.
Yet when we think of that epoch today, we usually recall a brighter legacy: a burst of revolutionary technologies such as Thomas Edison’s light bulb and first power station, Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone, George Westinghouse’s electric transformer. What happened in these dark years?
To read the full, original article click on this link: Stop Wasting a Good Panic, Says ‘Creative Class’ Author Florida - Bloomberg.com
Author:
James Pressley
