Dueling déjà vu visions of Hans Christian Andersen's The Princess and the Pea, and a past Sponge Bob Square Pant's The Lost Mattress episode, came to mind when the man in front of me in the bank, was withdrawing his entire retirement savings. His parting words, the ones that were repeatable, were along the lines of how much better he'd be sleeping, when his money was safely in his mattress.

This elderly heralding sentry was at least in his nineties, and somehow found enough strength to lift his index finger from his walker, while he shook it angrily at the bank manager. She was trying to explain to him that they needed advance notice for such a large withdrawal, and could only give him a portion of what he wanted. He would have to come back the next day for the remainder. She also tried to explain the risks of taking out so much cash, such as:

• Potential theft
• Loss
• Damaged by fire, flood, or hurricane

Falling on selective deaf ears, even her offers of putting the money in a cashier's check, or wiring it to another bank were rebuffed. Before he left that bank, he also made real sure that everyone within earshot heard his dire warnings about the dark days ahead, in the "Second Great Depression."

As I listened to this rambunctious gentleman, I couldn't get the image of Mr. Krab's mattress out of my mind. Obviously, I sometimes hang with a young crowd, so for those of you who are not familiar with SpongBob Square Pants cartoon series -- here's a brief summary of my mindset:

In a cartoon season four episode, Mr. Krabs is having trouble sleeping, as he complains his mattress is too lumpy. The other characters (Sponge Bob, Patrick, and Squidward) chip in to secretly buy him a new mattress. They cart the old mattress off to the junkyard. When Mr. Krabs' is taken to the hospital due to shock of waking up on a new mattress. They soon realize they have to retrieve the old mattress, because all of Mr. Krab's money was in that mattress. He kept his money there because he didn't trust banks.

Like Mr. Krab's -- many have lost faith in banks and the stock market, and a whole host of other entities, we once placed our trust, our future, and financial security to. Are the fears of this elderly gentleman (and others of a like mindset), and his cartoon equivalent justified?

It might be helpful to take a little review of where our banking elder's fears and anger were coming from. We Americans tend to forget that the Great Depression was a worldwide economic event.

Depending upon where you lived, it started in 1929, and lasted into the early 1940s in some countries. It didn't just affect more affluent countries, it devastated those third world countries that were still struggling to develop. The Depression wasn't just about the stock market crash and massive bank failures.

Looking back such financial hard times, it would serve us well to commit to memory that such catastrophic events didn't just happen to individuals and their personal incomes either, they also resulted in:

• Lower tax revenues for municipalities
• Prices of consumer products being driven up
• Profits driven down
• Often halted construction
• Falling crop prices
• Consumers to cutting expenditures dramatically
• Virtually no auto sales
• Wages dropping
• Massive layoffs
• Raising unemployment rates to over 25%
• Fewer jobs to replace lost jobs
• Prices and incomes falling by 30% on average
• Debt remained the same while the ability to pay it severely decreased

Sometimes all it takes, once that part of the financial falling domino equation begins, is something as simple as a major natural disaster in a key area of commerce (The Dust Bowl). These kind of financial hardships don't and didn't happen instantly, even though history generally portrays this as a sudden event originating in the Wall Street Crash of 1929. It's just the cumulative results of other things leading up to such happenings, that tip the balance.

To those hurt the most by them, the start of the domino effect that leads to total collapse are in the little things, that lead to fear and panic. Everyday people get scared, with good reasons, and they have little choice, but to cut back their expenditures.

Some points that were well stated among that elderly gentleman's tirade of comments in the bank, were the ones along the lines of:

• During the Depression, at least many people still knew how to take care of themselves.
• During the Depression, at least many people still had home gardens.
• Governmental guarantees and the Federal Reserve "safety nets" and "eleventh hour" saves -- were ineffective.
• The inequality of rich vs. poor deepened

The old adage, that "we are our brother's keeper," applies to what's happening right now. What happens to us, will and has already spiraled to other countries.

Could it be that America is the "weakest link" in the domino effect of financial hard times? During the Great Depression, it was the American financial system that tugged most other countries down the river of financial disaster first. Immediately, there were frenzied efforts to stabilize the economies by other countries. Most came in the form of governmental protectionist strategies and penalizing tariffs.

The second domino to fall was widespread panic, and it smashed head first into the biggest run of dominoes to fall -- debt. Just like in recent years, cheap credit that allows everyday people to buy and live beyond their means. Cheap credit, especially cheap mortgage loans to those who didn't have financial stability in the first place, is a domino of huge financial consequences in the events that are occurring today.

When the domino of "reality" fell -- both individuals and businesses who were deeply in debt, fell to price deflation as most drastically cut their spending to pay their minimum payments, or just survive. That meant the next monetary domino was a lower demand for new products and more products, leading to further dominoes of woe as businesses, factories, etc. fell on hard times.

Did we learn enough during the Depression to really make sure that it was the last time such circumstances could spiral out of control? My generation was taught that this could never happen again -- that banks could not fail and there wouldn't be more wars. So, here we are today, with many of us watching and wondering in very uncertain times.

It's important to understand that recessions are normal cycles of financial rhythms, sort of like the refrain that keeps popping up in a song. Like in music, the refrain can be a short one, or one that is so profound, it gets stuck in your head until something better comes along.

It's a fact, not a historical footnote, that sharp declines in international trade worsened the situation and led to a Depression. Back then, foreign trade was only a small part of the U.S. financial problems. Furthermore, during that time period, most of our exports were agricultural related, such as wheat, corn, cotton, tobacco, and timber. As a result of that many farm families were the ones who suffered the most.

Another historical fact that we would be wise to remember, is that the problems during the Depression were made worse by governmental efforts and intervention. This was a big part of the tirade of finger shaking comments Mr. Krab's real life counter-part was barking at the bank manager.

The financial chicken or egg debate, into who caused the past recessions or the Depression -- boils down to two schools of thought:

• It happens because of free market failures
• It happens because of governmental failures

Furthermore, there are lots of finger pointing as we historically look back upon those troubled times and look for the true causes. Like any other piece of history, there is much disagreement as to the causes and who truly was to blame.

As the whole drama with the elderly banking client played out before me, strangely, I also thought about The Princess and the Pea. In the modern day English fairy tale version, The Princess and the Pea (originally titled Prinsessen på ærten, by Hans Christian Andersen),is about proving who is the "real" princess by placing a pea under many mattresses -- only the real princess would know the difference.

Only the young woman who is worthy of being a real princess, will marry the prince. Apparently it takes twenty mattresses and twenty feathers, and only one small pea, to determine the degree of "delicateness" sufficient for such a match made in heaven. While this may not be an immediate comparison for many, my basic gut instinct is that this old man's fears, might have been created by his being sensitive enough to detect too many "peas" in his mattress. Only someone who has lived the past Great Depression, would know first hand, when to worry.

What "peas" are keeping you from a good night's sleep?

• Half of us are now worried we won't be able to retire, until we are much older than originally planned
• One third of us are worried about losing our jobs
• Half of us are troubled about being able to make our credit card payments
• Half of us are distressed about making mortgage payments
• Eighty percent of us with stock are worried about the value
• Eighty percent of us with retirement investments have already lost a third of long standing value we counted on
• One third of us know do not know how we will finance our children's college education
• One third of us are worried about access to our money in banks

• Australia was deeply hurt due to it's unique situation in terms of exports and imports.
• Canada was deeply impacted with incomes falling to half
• France was more self-sufficient, but did experience unemployment, social unrest, and some hardship
• Germany has very hard hit due to it's need for American dollars to rebuild after WWI. The Great Depression perhaps set the stage for a nationalist demagogue to take power (Hitler).
• Japan was only mildly affected because their country's leadership quickly implemented far sighted and innovative policies. While many other countries were in a full tilt depression, the Japanese people only experienced a short lived recession.
• Parts of South America and Central America were devastated by the Depression, due to their reliance on the United States. Here, there was great political upheaval.
• The citizens of the Netherlands endured profound personal poverty and for longer than most countries in this era. Again, there was great political disruption as a result.
• South Africa also experienced many political upheavals.
• The former Soviet Union, took this global financial predicament as an excuse to isolate itself, and experienced it's own long lasting political changes.

I'm not advocating stuffing your mattress with all your money, as that elderly bank patron was proposing. However, it does seem that many of our banks and bankers are not our friends, and often treat our money as those it were "theirs."

Watchful and thinking everyday citizens, need to be holding their governments and others accountable, while simultaneously minding their own pocketbooks very carefully.