The hard part about economic analysis is you can never know all the variables in a dynamic system. It's a common error to summarize based on variables convenient to the theme you choose to present only to later realize your analysis should have included some fairly obvious factors.
The majority of mainstream economists didn't see it coming. That's a totally valid criticism. But they did a much better job of handling it than in 1929, and the damage, while major, was still nothing like the Great Depression.
Still: if you believe today's troubles are in any way comparable to the 20s, you owe it to yourself to read up on that period. Check for "starvation" in the index.
People who criticize what is and is not counted and don't specify which unemployment number are uninformed.
I agree it's not comparable -- many billions more people are negatively affected by the Great Recession simply because world population has grown so much since 1929.
are "unemployed people" and "not currently looking for work" comparable measures, or where there man more people "not looking for work" in 1929? (most women, for example?)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment_in_the_United_Sta... suggests that many of those 100million are relatively old or not interested in jobs even if jobs were on offer.