For those who are thrilled by retro kitsch.

How might the current government stem the tide of economic and psychological depression? Can artists and designers help in similar ways today? It’s curious that the WPA style has been reprised in the recent past as a quaint retro conceit, but today may be an opportune time for a brand-new graphic language—equal in impact to the original initiative, but decidedly different—to help rally the cause of hope and optimism.

Oh the thrill of imagining a Great Depression. It's an opportunity for Great Design and Really Cool Government.

Some designers are already profiting. The Telegraph reports that Depression-themed Christmas cards are a hit.

So far, fortunately, these are all fantasies. Peggy Noonan is right when she observes that "everything looks the same." Stocks have crashed to 2004 levels, but today's 6.5 percent unemployment rate, while high, is a lot lower than rates in the first half of the 1980s. And don't get me started on the horrors of the 1970s. (Speaking of which, I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of Robert Samuelson's new book, The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath: The Past and Future of American Affluence , reviewed here by Jonathan Rauch.)

It's not a Depression, folks, and it wouldn't be nearly as fun to think about if it were.

True, but we have to think of future scholars who will need this sort of source material to support their fantasy histories in service of their agendas.