on your point wrt the Great Depression, I thought this to be pertinent:
With a nod to the tariff wars that ushered in the Great Depression, Lagarde warned that “coercive” trade policies would make things worse for everyone. She also noted that in the crises of the postwar era, the U.S. and its trading partners at least had a shared geopolitical imperative — to win the Cold War — that incentivized them to patch up their quarrels.
By contrast, she implied, the U.S. has no such constraints vis-à-vis China today. That only makes the situation more dangerous for the world economy, she noted, since trade and international supply chains now play a much larger role than in the past.
As trade-related tensions have boiled over, financial markets have speculated on the idea that the U.S. dollar’s dominance in global finance may be weakening, and that the euro may accordingly develop a greater role as a reserve currency.
Politico (link). reports on Largarde addressing the People's Bank of China: China must change its ways or it risks plunging the world into a new depression, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said
