Is the 2030 Great Depression Forecast Realistic? An Economist Weighs In

In this month's Market Insights Broadcast, Aaron Tuttle, CFA®, CFP®, CLU®, ChFC®, Chief Executive Officer, and Chris Arends, CFA®, CMT®, CAIA®, Chief Investment Officer, are joined by Dr. Patrick Newman, Assistant Teaching Professor of Economics at the University of Tampa and Murray N. Rothbard Research Fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, for a special edition on the forecast we get asked about more than any other: the call for a Great Depression in the 2030s. Dr. Newman explains why he considers a 1930s-style deflationary collapse extremely unlikely today, walks through the true money supply chart, and lays out the two scenarios he believes are far more probable — inflationary stagnation on one side, AI-driven growth deflation on the other. The conversation closes on what preparation actually looks like when the future is genuinely uncertain. Key Topics Include: Why the 1930s Great Depression was structurally unique The true money supply and what 100 years of data shows How leaving the gold standard changed what the Federal Reserve can do Federal deposit insurance and the modern bank-run picture Inflationary stagnation vs. growth deflation: two scenarios for the 2030s Treasury liquidity backstops, debt service, and pressure to keep rates low Whether AI productivity gains are showing up in the macro data Preparing instead of predicting