@jpn of Seattle,
to paraphrase Hitler "the power of the people to forget is immense"
when every new boom starts people forget that booms merely set the stage for the bust, that it is simply a cycle.
hitler also said "what good fortune for governments that people do not think"
most of the time the only thing you need to do to bring about a boom is to increase the rate of expansion of the money supply ( which will inevitably lead to a crash ). the economic boom makes you a hero even as you're signing a death sentence for the economy.
the actual crash comes when the next president is in office and he gets the blame ... or he would ... but he starts to expand the money supply even faster turing the bust into another boom.
this continues for as long as physically possible until the economy is positively dead, like it is now, and no CPR can revive it. but the government can't just STOP. they know if they stop printing money the depression will get EVEN WORSE and they will get SLAUGHTERED by the people ( who understand nothing about economcis ) for it. so they government keeps printing money and you end with hyperinflation and total collapse of society.
we are repeating the events of the great depression today. great depression lasted over a decade and ended only with WW2. can we survive another world war ?