American Hard Times 1929 or 2009?

This is a fascinating article. California 2009 is broke and is, by all accounts on the verge of some major economic and social collapse (the rest of America based its economy and social structure on California and so, oops, did Britain...) Read it here and see if there are any similarities with the stuff we have recently done on the great depression. Also, if you can find out, look at the causes of the current economic crisis and see if they are similar to the causes of the previous one or if there are differences.