The reason you've never heard of the great depression of 1920, despite being a far more severe financial crisis than the great depression, is that nobody decided to dick around with the economy. They let the medicine do it's work and the economy was back on its feet in a couple of years.

What we are doing now is exactly the same as that which created and sustained the great depression for 17 years, only far worse. It would not surprise me to see a total collapse like Russia; and frankly, that too is much needed to wipe the slate of government clean and start fresh without all the leeches.

The reason you've never heard of the great depression of 1920, despite being a far more severe financial crisis than the great depression, is that nobody decided to dick around with the economy. They let the medicine do it's work and the economy was back on its feet in a couple of years.

What we are doing now is exactly the same as that which created and sustained the great depression for 17 years, only far worse. It would not surprise me to see a total collapse like Russia; and frankly, that too is much needed to wipe the slate of government clean and start fresh without all the leeches.

According to Bloomberg (April 17): ' The Public-Private Investment Program, PPIP, designed to buy bad assets from banks, “is a really bad program,” Stiglitz said. It won’t accomplish the administration’s goal of establishing a price for illiquid assets clogging banks’ balance sheets, and instead will enrich investors while sticking taxpayers with huge losses.
“You’re really bailing out the shareholders and the bondholders,” he said. “Some of the people likely to be involved in this, like Pimco, are big bondholders,” he said, referring to Pacific Investment Management Co., a bond investment firm in Newport Beach, California. '

Which gives a nice perspective on why Janet Yellen recently praised not just Minsky but – quite correctly – McCulley as an old hand in Minskyite analysis. This is how McCulley put it in his talk in the 17th Annual Hyman Minsky Conference:

'Let me tell you that, while the Levy Institute is a think tank, Minsky’s work is not just think-tank work. It’s also not just policy-wonkish work. It has real, practical implications in the world that I live in. At PIMCO, we manage three-quarters of a trillion—with a t—debt units. They’re sometimes called bonds, but here I think I should call them debt units. I introduced our CIO, Bill Gross, to Minsky’s thinking about six years ago, when we had the corporate scandals associated with WorldCom and Enron and so forth. We were in an investment committee meeting, and I said, “Bill, it’s very simple: it’s a Minsky moment”—a phrase I’d coined back in 1998. And he said, “What do you mean? Who is this Minsky guy?” I said, “Bill, you have got to get up to speed here.” So he said immediately, “Give me his work.” I had my copy of Stabilizing an Unstable Economy (1986) right on my shelf at the office, so I lent it to Bill. He read it cover to cover. By 2006, he had become a disciple, if you will. I say “disciple” because the whole framework of Minsky has a very simple core thesis. We all know it: stability is destabilizing, because market participants, or economic agents, being human beings, extrapolate stability into infinity. And, if you extrapolate stability into infinity, then you inherently take on ever more risky debt structures. That is a Nobel Prize concept, that the world is not inherently mean reverting on the basis of value. The world is inherently momentum-driven. Human beings are inherently reflexive. Intellectually, we know to buy low and sell high, but emotionally, we can’t bring ourselves to do that; we tend to do the exact opposite, which imparts an intense procyclical character to capitalism. Perhaps even worse, it imparts procyclicality to regulatory structures. Not only are the kids and the frat party procyclical, but the guidance counselor is too. That’s a reality of financial markets.'

So, we are all Minskyites now…but as you said, serving the interests of PIMCO is not necessarily in the interests of ordinary Americans (or ordinary folks anywhere)…Or, borrowing a line from McCulley´s talk:

“The definition of a Ponzi unit is when you borrow money to buy an asset and the income from the asset is not only insufficient to amortize the principle but also insufficient to pay the interest in full. When there is zero down, that creates the next step beyond Ponzi. The Ponzi unit isn’t defined by the terms of whether or not the borrower has skin in the game; it’s the deficiency of cash flow to pay interest or amortize the principle. It’s agnostic, essentially, on the issue of skin in the game. A unit is Ponzi squared if it has all the characteristics of a Ponzi unit and you’ve got no skin in the game, because then you have something extremely valuable
being given to the speculator for free: an at-the money call and at-the-money put. None of us would pass up that kind of thing.”

Indeed.

According to Bloomberg (April 17): ' The Public-Private Investment Program, PPIP, designed to buy bad assets from banks, “is a really bad program,” Stiglitz said. It won’t accomplish the administration’s goal of establishing a price for illiquid assets clogging banks’ balance sheets, and instead will enrich investors while sticking taxpayers with huge losses.
“You’re really bailing out the shareholders and the bondholders,” he said. “Some of the people likely to be involved in this, like Pimco, are big bondholders,” he said, referring to Pacific Investment Management Co., a bond investment firm in Newport Beach, California. '

Which gives a nice perspective on why Janet Yellen recently praised not just Minsky but – quite correctly – McCulley as an old hand in Minskyite analysis. This is how McCulley put it in his talk in the 17th Annual Hyman Minsky Conference:

'Let me tell you that, while the Levy Institute is a think tank, Minsky’s work is not just think-tank work. It’s also not just policy-wonkish work. It has real, practical implications in the world that I live in. At PIMCO, we manage three-quarters of a trillion—with a t—debt units. They’re sometimes called bonds, but here I think I should call them debt units. I introduced our CIO, Bill Gross, to Minsky’s thinking about six years ago, when we had the corporate scandals associated with WorldCom and Enron and so forth. We were in an investment committee meeting, and I said, “Bill, it’s very simple: it’s a Minsky moment”—a phrase I’d coined back in 1998. And he said, “What do you mean? Who is this Minsky guy?” I said, “Bill, you have got to get up to speed here.” So he said immediately, “Give me his work.” I had my copy of Stabilizing an Unstable Economy (1986) right on my shelf at the office, so I lent it to Bill. He read it cover to cover. By 2006, he had become a disciple, if you will. I say “disciple” because the whole framework of Minsky has a very simple core thesis. We all know it: stability is destabilizing, because market participants, or economic agents, being human beings, extrapolate stability into infinity. And, if you extrapolate stability into infinity, then you inherently take on ever more risky debt structures. That is a Nobel Prize concept, that the world is not inherently mean reverting on the basis of value. The world is inherently momentum-driven. Human beings are inherently reflexive. Intellectually, we know to buy low and sell high, but emotionally, we can’t bring ourselves to do that; we tend to do the exact opposite, which imparts an intense procyclical character to capitalism. Perhaps even worse, it imparts procyclicality to regulatory structures. Not only are the kids and the frat party procyclical, but the guidance counselor is too. That’s a reality of financial markets.'

So, we are all Minskyites now…but as you said, serving the interests of PIMCO is not necessarily in the interests of ordinary Americans (or ordinary folks anywhere)…Or, borrowing a line from McCulley´s talk:

“The definition of a Ponzi unit is when you borrow money to buy an asset and the income from the asset is not only insufficient to amortize the principle but also insufficient to pay the interest in full. When there is zero down, that creates the next step beyond Ponzi. The Ponzi unit isn’t defined by the terms of whether or not the borrower has skin in the game; it’s the deficiency of cash flow to pay interest or amortize the principle. It’s agnostic, essentially, on the issue of skin in the game. A unit is Ponzi squared if it has all the characteristics of a Ponzi unit and you’ve got no skin in the game, because then you have something extremely valuable
being given to the speculator for free: an at-the money call and at-the-money put. None of us would pass up that kind of thing.”

Indeed.

no need for me to rant here, as you've nailed it already

I can do it for him with a socialized broomhandle

Barry