Slumping stocks, a melting housing market, wall street in peril. It's no wonder some think history may be repeating itself.

"The main reason the comparison is made is that the stock market crash in 1929 was the first loud exclamation something was wrong," Mark Kornbluh said.

Kornbluh is the chair of the History Department at MSU. He said there are similarities between today and the Great Depression.

"The economy really ground to a halt and the first signs were a financial collapse in the stock market and it spiraled down," Kornbluh said.

But nothing, he said, compares to the scale of that economic crisis.

In the late twenties and thirties lines for bread reached around city blocks, thousands were out work and thousands more lost their homes and were forced to live in shacks.

"There were people selling apples on the street for 10 cents to support themselves," Kornbluh said.

The biggest difference Kornbluh said is federal intervention. Back then the government didn't intervene until years later when the country had a new president and a new deal.

"The difference is it took three years for any response," he said. "Political leaders are trying to respond here in three weeks instead of three years."

The economic future is still unknown, but Kornbluh said he hopes we've all learned from the past.