This is not your mother’s contraction. Instead, this is the mother of all contractions, a contraction far greater than even that which sent the world into the Great Depression in the 1930s.

This time, the amounts owed are exponentially greater than what was owed in the 1930s; and, the greater the debts, the farther the fall. Debt does not just disappear without consequences, nor can it be outrun, sic outgrown, as economists are desperately hoping, especially today when economies are contracting, not expanding.

Economic contractions cannot be reversed by expanding the money supply any more than wishful thinking by itself will change the world. Despite the best efforts of central bankers like Ben Bernanke, Friedman’s flawed theory cannot save the world from what is now about to happen—the mother of all depressions that may be capitalism’s last.