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In 1907 we had what amounted to TARP except that we had no central bank thanks to Andrew Jackson in 1837 when he killed our central bank. J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller and the New York Clearing House supplied the bailout money to the New York bankers. The government was powerless to help because they had no access to capital. The wiki is very informative for anyone that thinks tea party and/or libertarian solutions are actually solutions. See the wiki on the stock market scare of 1907.

At the end of WW1, we had a serious recession due to the money spent on the war and the returning troops not being able to find work. High spending, high debt, high unemployment, almost exactly what we have today. The US Government started a works program that literally built our highway system. (Not to be confused with the Interstate system built in the 1950s-1960s.)

After the bubble created by easy credit during the Coolidge Administration, the stock market crashed. President Hoover decided initially to do what the Tea Party folks want to do today: Lower government involvement by tightening credit through the Fed. This sent the market off the cliff, into what we now know as The Great Depression. Before the end of his term and through FDR's terms, several stimulus packages dug us back out of the hole.

After WW2, we had another period that was very similar to what we have today: High spending, high debt (both due to the war) and high unemployment (due to returning troops.) The government headed off disaster by planning ahead. They introduced the GI Bill, which first allowed returning vets to buy a house with no money down. This immediately created loads of construction jobs to meet demand. We built our suburbs during that period. Secondly, the GI Bill paid for any returning vet that was interested to go to college. After a half dozen years, we had the best educated population the world had ever seen.

Post war periods, recessions, depressions, bank scares and stock market crashes all have qualities that are similar or identical to our current situation. In every case, the government acts to "promote the general welfare" in whatever way is necessary. Never in our history has the government shrunk our way out of trouble. Even in debt-ridden times like post war periods we spend to get the economy back on track.

Here is a neat song about history in the 20th century by Billy Joel--lyrics are included--it will definitely give you some ideas for sure!

We didn't start the fire:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-y1-eXjJ_g

The rise of fascism, which was also based on endless government paper money, and a belief that government has the ability to fix anything, and that people's rights are whatever is left over after the government has done whatever it wants.

Russia in the 1920's.

Germany in the 1930's.

China in the 1940's.