ABSTRACT
The statistics clearly show that the 2007 crisis primarily hit developed countries that regularly posted wide trade deficits: the United States, the United Kingdom and southern Europe. It is difficult to make a blow-by-blow comparison between the 1929 and 2007 crises. Thus, in the United States, during the worst sub-segment of the 1929 crisis, the cumulated net loss of non-farm payrolls represented 14 per cent of its previous high; this time, the cumulated net job loss that occurred from its peak in January 2008 to its bottom in February 2010 reached 8,650,000, which represents a drop of 6.4 per cent of total jobs at January 2008. There are two options for any government in managing its global demand to stave off economic stagnation: either it succeeds in obtaining quarterly significant external trade surpluses or it resigns itself to stimulating its domestic demand quarterly through indebtedness of its private sector or of its public sector.
