Well, the author is talking about signs pointing to a depression a couple of years down the road, so the signs may not be apparent now. The U.S. has been having tough times in some industries at least for a year or so, even though it hasn't met the official definition of "recession." The EU and Japan have apparently recently met the criteria for being in recession. But, I'm not convinced this will be as bad as the '30s, which had 25%+ unemployment. Who knows though, if you ask me in a few months I might be holed up in an underground bunker,writing xombytes about 1001 ways to cook dried garbanzo beans.

I don't agree with all of Farrell's points, but this appears to be the worst economic downturn I've seen in my life (which includes the Arab oil embargo of the early 1970s, which featured inflation at 15% and waiting in line 3 hours or more to buy gas [when the stations actually had gas]).