Great Depression redux?

GM and Ford may be teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. No one with an IQ above that of a sledgehammer is buying anything not an absolute necessity. 

Retirement accounts are bleeding dollars faster than Palin's negatives are rising. There is no "safe" investment; even money market accounts are threatened.

Jobs are lost daily, plants are closing, everybody wants to sell, no one wants to buy.

And that's just the scenario in the US. The outlook in Europe and Asia is just as gloomy..  

I don't know where the bottom is, but it may be time to talk with the elders, the folks in their 80's and 90's who lived through the Great Depression. They may have some advice about holding on when there's nothing left to hold on to.   

Hard times in the 1930's culminated with a world war. Desperate times often call forth desperate leaders. God help us all if the world goes down that road again.