Not even the Great Depression was able to permanently interrupt the exponential growth rate of US GDP. Recall that a straight line on a logarithmic scale represents an exponential trend. Notice how during the 1930s, the economic system looked as though it had "run off the rails" literally, yet the 1940s quickly corrected deviation from the trend with explosive growth.
Global GDP growth passed the "knee of the curve" during the Industrial Revolution of the 1950s, 60s and 70s. This is significant due to the fact that growth after this point in the chart, the "exponential" portion of the curve, will be seemingly explosive and unpredictable. We are experiencing this today as the rest of the developing world becomes fully developed (i.e. the BRIC countries and other emerging ecomomies.).
The nature of exponential growth in trends of this nature is often unpredictable past a point known as the Event Horizon. It is difficult to imagine what global growth will represent past this point. What happends when the entire globe is equally developed? What will the economy seem like when growth that took decades to occur in the past, occurs within weeks or months. Projections become difficult past the event horizon and it itself is difficult to pinpoint.
I can assure you that we are not entering a global depression or a DOW retracement to 1000 points as some of the doomsday analysts are suggesting. This makes no rational sense based on growth trends that have been in place for hundreds of years.
