Right, to reiterate, we're saying there _were of course_ business cycles before the federal reserve, just like there was _of course_ monetary intervention then

Right, to reiterate, we're saying there _were of course_ business cycles before the federal reserve, just like there was _of course_ monetary intervention then as well. The OP and I are saying that the federal reserve _exaggerated_ the depression. Your pointing to much smaller prior events is a non-starter. And yes, biology is not free of observation, my point was that it is more closely associated with deduction rather than statistical inference - but yes, mathematics would be even closer an analog - if I had said that a mathematician would have argued that some economists use statistical inference - goes on ad nauseum. Still not sure what you're trying to say, but yes, there was a business cycle before a necessarily large increase in mal-investment and there were necessarily larger cycles after said investment.