You can not simply compare the 1929 great depression to today. For the simple reason, and i'm certain these critics that spew their angle of the issue, is that the world is far more connected today than in the early 30s. Because of this close connection and wide use of economic data (with a MUCH higher degree of accuracy than 100 years ago), gov'ts around the world and the central banks are able to have a tighter control of the global economy. Issues like Quantitative Easing & MMT never existed back then, the "tools" that central banks had at their disposal again, never existed back then. You simply just can't forecast or base assumptions on a graph showing how much the market crashed in the Great Depression and assume that the same could happen again. That's the biggest problem with looking at charts ; much like a photo snapshot at the time but certainly should be not indication history will repeat in the SAME manner.

Yes crashes do come and go but to the smart investor, all of that is noise and what is more important is the long term plan. "It's not how many times you go in or out of the stock market but rather... how long you stay in that counts"