Talk of a Recession, Maybe a Depression

A multi-year recession. Maybe a depression.

A president who seemed clueless. And history would prove witless.

Investment houses sinking, most likely dying.

Investors so burned on the year, they wouldn't return for many years.

Ring a bell? It should.

But I'm not talking the view now, in the fall of 2008. I'm talking the view then, in the fall of 1987, when the media world was convinced our financial world was ending.

Take a look at this TIME magazine cover story from November 2, 1987. FOX News fan Ron Caspell was nice enough to pass it along.

Ron, I remember it well. Because I covered the crash then and read and followed all the coverage then.

How Republicans were idiots and would never hold the White House the next year. They did.

How this up-and-coming fellow Michael Dukakis would benefit from this thirst for change. He did not.

How President Ronald Reagan's tax cuts would prove a bust that created the crash. More like a boom, that would more than survive that crash.

How the recession, maybe depression, would drag on and on. It was over in months.

My point is not to pick on TIME, but remember such prognostications rarely stand the test of time. Of markets that change. People that change. And perceptions that change.

Back then, you'd think the world was ending. It wasn't.

Today, you'd think the same world is ending again. It won't.

I like to think we are bigger than the crises thrown at us, or the grim prospects the media report are in store for us.

I don't know. This much I do know: Ronald Reagan turned out to be a pretty good president — crash and all.

Michael Dukakis turned out far from that sure thing for president — crash and all.

That's all.

I guess you'd be right to question another media guy's view of things. So may I suggest you refer to a better source on these things — in a word: history.

Watch Neil Cavuto weekdays at 4 p.m. ET on "Your World with Cavuto" and send your comments to cavuto@foxnews.com