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Comment by AngrySkillzz | Hacker News Reader

Backing you up here. There is a clearregime change in the data before and after the advent of central banking. Recessions and financial panics are less frequent, and less severe. Just looking at the US, there were ~15 recessions since the adoption of central banking in the 1910's. In the same time period during the 1800s there were >25 recessions, and that's not even comparing for severity. You can see the Wiki[1] for an overview.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_Unit...

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Are you counting the recessions caused by central banking policies being mistaken or outright wrong? There have been at least two in the USA in the past century that can be directly linked to the Federal Reserve, and who knows how many in other countries.

In the USA the two are the Great Depression (which the former Fed chief Ben Bernanke has argued was largely the result of Fed policies) and the early 1980s recession caused by the Fed increasing rates in an attempt to combat inflation. (It worked, inflation dropped, but many people lost their jobs.)

Sure, many people make that argument. The recessions happened regardless of their source. But the financial panics that preceded lenders-of-last-resort and countercyclical monetary policy were significantly more frequent and severe than anything we've seen in recent history.

Edit: just noticed your edit, Bernanke never said that monetary policy caused the Great Depression, but it is the consensus view that policy was too tight during that period and exacerbated it. A mistake that no one is keen to repeat. Certainly the interest rate rises in the 80's caused a contraction, one could argue whether the subsequent recession was worth the cost of fighting inflation. I think all would agree that the stagflation that prompted that maneuver was not ideal.

It's also worth mentioning that older folks alive during the Great Depression had a perspective on it vs the panics during the 19th century. Many observed that the Great Depression, which was the worst in a generation, was tough but manageable compared to the Panic of 1983 where people literally could not buy food.

Yup, there is a lot of interesting perspective you get from reading journals and correspondence from the period. Sources from the late 1800s will include bits from the lives of every day people, almost always along the lines of: John opens a store, panic occurs, his business fails and he moves to a different town; becomes a partner in a canal shipping company, panic occurs, his business fails and he moves to a different town; etc.

s/1983/1893/.

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