The Great Depression of 1990

Southern Methodist University economics professor Batra bases his prediction of a ""great depression'' around 1990 on a pattern of 30- and 60-year recession-depression cycles in the U.S. dating back to the 1780s. He cites factors leading to the stock market crash of 1929 that also are present today: intense concentration of wealth, a depressed farm economy, heavy speculation, bank vulnerability, protectionist trade sentiment and fiscal corruption. The author relates all this to a theory of India's social scientist Prabhat Sarkar who divides human experience into ages of ``laborers, warriors, intellectuals and acquisitors,'' the latter with their ``merger mania'' being dominant today. Batra's defensive formula for weathering the next slump includes such steps as converting one's assets (home and all) into cash, which, if widely followed, could bring on recession all the sooner. He does, however, propose a tax plan, admittedly unlikely to be adopted, which could puncture the Federal deficit and make a true depression virtually impossible. (June)