The wavelike movement affecting the economic system, the recurrence of
periods of boom which are followed by periods of depression, is the
unavoidable outcome of the attempts, repeated again and again, to lower the
gross market rate of interest by means of credit expansion. There is no
means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit
expansion.
The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result
of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final
and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.