The Depression, Recession, and Business Cycle

The phrase “History repeats itself” is a commonly used paradigm when it comes to events that happen in a repetitive notion. The recession that has recently been witnessed by the millions is a great example of history repeating itself. How did it happen, did we know it was going to happen, and was there anything that could have been done to prevent it? There are a multitude of questions that could be asked, with the most important of them all, will it happen again? In just the past two hundred years, the United States has seen “Black Friday” in 1869, “The Great Depression” in 1929, and the most current recession of 2009. Recessions, depressions, inflation, economic boom, these are all terms used to describe the financial events that have taken place in the United States as far back as 1819. Known as the first major recession, an economic boom took place just after the war of 1812. According to an article in American History Magazine, most recessions that the US has seen last an average of 10 months, and reoccur on average every 4.6 years. It has become a cycle, a business cycle, one that we will most likely see several times over again during our time. These events among others that deal with financial crisis, weather it be a loss of stock or inflation of goods, have had a tremendous effect on our country, and is believed that it will happen again.

. In the first recorded recession, it is stated that lenders were pretty free with lending money for the purchase of land. When one of the lender banks went belly up, land values fell and property was soon lost to foreclosure. This is pretty common to what we have seen today. Again in 1837 the U.S sees yet another downturn, this time due to the fall of the cotton mar...

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...history shows, will continue.

Works Cited

Allen,Roy E.. Financial Crisis and recession in the Global Economy. 2 ed.

Northhampton: Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc., 1999.

Erickson, Justin. "Stock Market Crash of 1929: The Week that Broke the American Economy(2006), 2, http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/47662/stock_market_crash_of_1929_the_week_pg2.html?cat=37. (accessed April 7, 2010).

Kennedy, Daivd M.. Freedom from Fear. The Oxford history of the United States. IX, The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945. C. Vann Woodward. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. P 51

Mandel, Susan. "Hard Times." Nine recessions that give these times a little perspective, April 2010, p 63.

Murphy, PH.D,Robert P. The Politically Incorrect Guide to The Great Depression and the New Deal. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2009.