How much are you willing to suffer to improve the economy?

Inspired by the first answer to this question.

Many places online and in the media lately, I see people say that a massive economic failure will hurt in the short term but improve the overall economy, eventually. This is especially true when the conversation turns to bailouts and programs like the TARP and stimulus spending. The point of these is to keep the economy flowing and the money cycle intact. Without this cycle continuing, we could have some pretty desperate times, and some people say that this is already the worst recession since the Great Depression.

Here are some interviews with people who lived through the Depression.

While people often imagine that an economic collapse will affect “other people,” I’m wondering what privations you would willingly endure (for who knows how long?) as a “short term pain,” in exchange for a healthier economy later on when all the dust settles. Would you gladly and willingly…

- lose your job and be unable to find another?
– lose your home to foreclosure?
– divorce?
– live on the street or in a hooverville?
– forgo being able to eat, or being able to feed your children?
– go without medical care?
– steal, turn to prostitution or crime?
– die?

How much is enough suffering and hardship to ask people to endure to clean out the economic chaff?