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Barry Eichengreen and Kevin O'Rourke provide an interesting economic historical comparison in this blog article, "A Tale of Two Depressions". Yes, things still look serious. Now time will tell whether the stimulus was sufficient or just postponed a day of reckoning. I don't think that the core issues (bad assets on the books, too big to fail institutions, have been resolved and that optimism is unwarranted.

"To summarise: the world is currently undergoing an economic shock every bit as big as the Great Depression shock of 1929-30. Looking just at the US leads one to overlook how alarming the current situation is even in comparison with 1929-30."