[redrobot5050]

Um, we didn't have a central bank point of failure. We had 5 large investment banks, most of which had the intelligence to survive the first great depression.

The major problem is that the American economy had become entirely dependent on consumer spending, which, because of a lack of real wage growth among the bottom 80% led to a massive expansion and dependence on credit. When the housing bubble burst, credit went cold turkey, and many defaulted on their debt because of their inflated lifestyle.

As a result, everyone suffered. Consumers stopped spending, which lead to businesses credit lines being downgraded, leading to a halt in manufacturing and importing. The global ripples of having a force (like credit) simply disappear are obvious, just as they were right before the first great depression.