From America's Great Depression — surrounding passage

If businessmen are misled into thinking that less capital is available for investment than is really the case, no lasting damage in the form of wasted investments will ensue. 13 Furthermore, in the nature of things, credit contraction is severely limited—it cannot progress beyond the extent of the preceding inflation. 14 Credit expansion faces no such limit. G OVERNMENT D EPRESSION P OLICY : L AISSEZ -F AIRE

“If government wishes to see a depression ended as quickly as possible and the economy returned to normal prosperity, what course should it adopt? The first and clearest injunction is: Don't interfere with the market's adjustment process.”

The more the government intervenes to delay the market’s adjustment, the longer and more grueling the depression will be, and the more difficult will be the road to complete recovery. Government hampering aggravates and perpetuates the depression. Yet, government depression policy has always (and would have even more today) aggravated the very evils it has loudly tried to cure.