Never as bad as the 1930s - Why Not?

There has been a timeline of confident comments used to argue down anyone who dared to question the senseless financial actions of the federal reserve and Wall St and point out the large black clouds appearing on the horizon. One by one they have slowly been disproved as the global economy moves in a giant wave unfurling itself as it wills despite the worlds central banks and governments.

'Monetary policy is stellar, the US economy has never been wealthier or in better shape'
'The sub prime shake won't extend to the larger economy'
'There is simply a slow down in economic growth but we should skirt recession'
'With the actions the fed has taken we will avoid recession'
'With the action the fed and treasury has taken we will avoid a deep recession'

We have now come to 'no matter what' qualifier.

'No matter what happens it will never be as bad as the great depression'

The obvious question is why not?

The assumption is that the new technology and better economic understanding of the latter part of the 20th century will protect the global economy from falling to great depression levels. When we look at these claims though there must be concerns.

Firstly, the technological advances that generated the 1990s technology bubble were no more of an advance beyond the technological advances of the early 1900s (flight, electricity, radio, cars etc) that generated the 1920s boom.
Secondly, the clear surprise of the US economic authorities at the lack of traction of their policies is beginning to show that all those advances in Macro theory may not have been much of an advancement at all.
Thirdly, those advances had Alan Greenspan expand the monetary supply after the 2001 technology bubble collapse to unprecedented levels which led to distortions and destruction of wealth at new levels.
Fourthly, as a result of these financial policies the US is now entering this dark period as a major debtor nation when it entered the great depression as a major creditor nation.

Already there are signs that a 1920s level downturn is on the cards. Unemployment is the key and granted unemployment reached 25% of the labour force and we're a long way from that. But are we really only at 7% unemployment? As Reuters points out if unemployment were still tallied the way it was in the 1930s, today's jobless rate would be closer to 16.5 percent. They have learned a few tricks about economics along the way!