https://www.shmoop.com/great-depression/economy.html!
(Forgive the source, but I thought it did a good job of offering an overview and I appreciated it's conclusion wrt Keynes and Friedman.)
What were the problems during the Great Depression? ...all the above. What seems to be our current economic problems? ...all the above. What was the final solution to the Great Depression?...WWII. Ultimately, Keynes' ideas were used, but that doesn't mean Friedman's ideas would not have also worked. What obviously didn't work, was waiting for market forces to self correct.
We should look at the economy like Dr. Fauci looks at this pandemic. "Wherever we think we are, we're probably two weeks behind." And, "if we're being accused of doing too much, we're probably about right."
Does anyone remember any foreign leaders complaining about our use of QE, during the GR? I don't. And what were the results of QE? It seems to me, that it worked out quite well. And most of the politicians (IIRC) that were complaining about the use of QE, are the same politicians that were bragging about how well the economy was doing just a few short weeks ago.
We should be doing everything in our power to inflate this economy. And we should try to do it, using the Feds balance sheet, as much as possible. Even if it means going from the Feds balance sheet directly to the treasury. Inflation would be like a dove carrying an olive branch.
WRT writing checks to people from the treasury...of course we should. Once again, it's not about fairness, it's about getting through this disaster. WWII got us out of the GD, because it was a huge public works program. The economic benefit of paying someone to manufacture a bullet, and then paying someone to shoot that bullet at a German, is the exact economic benefit as paying two people to stay at home and watch their children.
It's also important to remember: money, wealth, the
time value of money, ect., are all man-made abstract constructs. We often assign a value or worth to something, but it is based on a relationship, relative to something else. These are difficult times and they're most likely going to get worse before they get better, but they will get better. There are things we can do to help. We should be bold and we shouldn't hesitate. I wish everyone the best.