"If you had asked people in 1929, 'Here is what is about to happen. How much would you pay to avoid the Great Depression from occurring?' The answer is they would have paid a lot. They would have borrowed money if it could be used to prevent the Great Depression"

In this quote, Austan Goolsbee is highlighting the intensity and effect of the Great Depression, a devastating economic crisis that occurred in the United States in the late 1920s and early 1930s. He postures a theoretical concern, asking what people would have wanted to pay to prevent this disastrous event from occurring. The implication is that the answer would have been a considerable quantity, as people would have been desperate to prevent the widespread unemployment, poverty, and monetary ruin that characterized the Great Depression. Goolsbee likewise recommends that people would have been willing to enter into financial obligation if it implied avoiding such a dire circumstance. In general, this quote stresses the gravity of the Great Depression and the desperation that individuals would have felt to avoid it.