Can the severity of the Great Depression in the 1930's happen again?

No, the Great Depression that occured in the 1930's can't and will not happen again.  I strongly believe that there will be a depression in the near future; the stock markets have been going up for the past year, and they will eventually go back down, as they always have in the past.  However, I don't think the severity of it will be anything close to that of the 1930's.

There are many reasons why such a huge disaster won't happen again.  The first reason is that it is very unlikely that a stock exchange such as the NYSE could fall as greatly as it did in 1930.  This just won't happen in the present day market, as stocks are not very volatile.  A second reason is that in the early 20th century, many countries were tied together through the gold standard.  When the price of gold plummeted, the countries did as well.  It is interesting to know that the earlier a country left the gold standard, the less deavasting the depression was on them.  And on the other hand, a country that satyed on the gold standard for a long time was usually heavily hit by the depression. So, for example, Great Britain left the gold standard relatively early in 1931.  Although they were hit by the depression, it was not nearly as sever as in other countries.  And countries like France or Switzerland, that didn't leave the gold standard until 1935, were hit much harder.  One more reason why the Great Depression won't happen again is because of the security nets that are now in place.  There are many different systems that have been put in place in order to prevent this from happening again.

In addition to the previous reasons, I strongly believe that more people are becoming smarter with their money.  They realize that they need to save their money and invest it.  Many people hire a financial advisor to help them because they realize the importance of thier money.  This will also definately help prevent a crisis, because if something weird happened, then people would be prepared.

So, overall I don't think that it is possible for the world to suffer though another Great Depression of the same magnitude.  But I do predict that the United States will have a moderate economic depression in the near future.