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explain the causes of great depression
explain the causes of great depression
the great depression world wide economic questions
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Learning from the Great Depression Over the course of history, America has dealt with its share of economic troubles. One of America’s darkest moments, economically, came in the year of 1929. On October 29th, 1929 America’s stock market crashed. This would become what we now know as the Great Depression. The Great Depression lasted approximately ten years. The Great Depression affected the entire country. Seven decades later we experienced what is known as the Great Recession. This also affected many Americans economically. Both of these economic meltdowns share commonalities. The Great Depression caused a massive decline in consumer spending, as well as a sharp decline in industrial production. With this decline in industrial production, products began to pile up and were left unsold. With the decline in production, people were laid off simply because there was not a need to produce any more goods. Stock prices were unstable and eventually led to over sixteen million shares that would be traded. These sixteen million shares were traded in the midst of another meltdown. Five days later, almost thirteen million more shares were traded away. Almost twenty nine million worthless shares were traded in. Another cause to the Great Depression was this newly invented idea of buying on margin, otherwise known as buying on credit. Banks were lending massive amounts of money to people who could not pay the money back. This eventually caused the banks to run out of money and simply fail. Many Americans that bought on credit were forced into foreclosures and repossessions. By 1932, almost 6 million Americans were unemployed and having a hard time finding work. The local soup kitchens and shelters saw astronomical numbers at the time, which a... ... middle of paper ... ...x." Government Policies and the Collapse in Trade during the Great Depression. Vox EU, 27 Nov. 2009. Web. 24 Apr. 2014. Libecap, Gary D. "The Great Depression and the Regulating State: Federal Government Regulation of Agriculture: 1884-1970." NBER. The University of Chicago Press,, n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2014. Graham, John R., Sonali Hazarika, and Krishnamoorthy Narasimhan. "Corporate Governance, Debt, and Investment Policy during the Great Depression." NBER. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2011. Web. 24 Apr. 2014. "The Great Recession." State of Working America. Economic Policy Institute, n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2014. "Unemployment and Underemployment." State of Working America. Economic Policy Institute, n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2014. History.com Staff. "The Great Depression." History.com. A&E Television Networks, 2009. Web. 22 Apr. 2014.
The stock market crash of 1929 is one of the main causes of the Great Depression. Before the stock market crash many people bought on margin, which caused the stock market to become very unbalanced, which led to the crash. Many people had invested heavily in the stock market during the 1920’s. All of these people who invested in the stock market lost all the money they had, since they relied on the stock market so much. The stock market crash also played a more physiological role in causing the Great depression. More businesses became aware of the difficulties, which caused businesses to not expand and start new projects. This caused job insecurity and uncertainty in incomes for employees. The crash was also used as a symbol of the changing times. The crash lead the American peop...
The Great Depression was the biggest and longest lasting economic crisis in U.S history. The Great depression hit the united states on October 29, 1929 When the stock market crashed. During 1929, everyone was putting in mass amounts of their income into the stock market. For every ten dollars made, Four dollars was invested into the stock market, thats forty percent of the individual's income (American Experience).
In the 1929, The Great Depression was a worldwide depression that lasted for 10 years. The stock market crash of the 1929 causes the Depression, when loans were given out and people couldn’t repay the loan. It affect many American lives, the unemployment had skyrocketed from 3% to 25%. Work wages fell 42% for those who still had a job. The Great Depression lasted so long was because it affect a nationwide and people didn’t have money to spend to recover the economy
With that act the Emergency Farm Mortgage Act came along also. These acts were designed to raise farm incomes, and give funds to farmers. They did this so farmers would not lose their land to foreclosure. The goal of this act was to lower production and raise prices. The Agricultural Adjustment Administration or AAA aided the farmers. In the spring, the Agricultural Adjustment Administration and the farmers got together. When the got together they set up quotas over how many acres of crop and livestock the United States needed. The Agricultural Adjustment Administration would pay farmers not to farm. The AAA secured themselves with the law of supply and demand. This became an enormous problem to the AAA. In 1933, the AAA plowed under millions of corn acres and slaughtered millions of pigs. Even though they AAA saved the farmers from economic disaster they still managed to do some harm along the way. Forty million acres of land had been taken out of production. Regardless of taking all of those acres out for production farm income increased with more than fifty percent within two years. (The New Deal,
Cecchetti, Stephen G. "Understanding the Great Depression: Lessons for Current Policy ." Monetary Economics (1997): 1-26.
The Great Depression America 1929-1941 by Robert S. McElvaine covers many topics of American history during the "Great Depression" through 1941. The topic that I have selected to compare to the text of American, Past and Present, written by Robert A. Divine, T.H. Breen, George M. Frederickson and R. Hal Williams, is Herbert Hoover, the thirty-first president of the United States and America's president during the horrible "Great Depression".
The Great Depression was the worst period in the history of America’s economy. There is no way to overstate how tough this time was for the average worker and there was a feeling of desperation that hung over the entire country. Current political wisdom leading up to the Great Depression had been that the federal government does not get involved in business or the economy under any circumstances. Three Presidents in a row; Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover, all were cut from the same cloth of enacting pro-business policies to generate a powerful economy. Because the economy was doing so well during the “Roaring 20s”, there wasn’t much of a dispute
"How the Great Recession Has Changed Life in America." Pew Research Centers Social Demographic Trends Project RSS. PewResearch, 30 June 2010. Web. 14 Mar. 2014.
In conclusion the evidence shows that the canadian government did an inadequate job of responding to the canadian citizens troubles during the great depression. Due to lack of effort and knowledge as well as shutting out international markets the canadian economy did nothing but suffer until the second world war.
The occurrence of the Great Depression was an inevitable economic disaster that was caused by a variety of reasons and events that happened in the U.S. and across the world. The lack of diversification was one of the main causes of the Great Depression as the dependence on only certain industries like the automobile industry began years before; and because of the prolonged success of such industries, their demise could not have been predicted. World War I was an event that had a major impact on the Great Depression because of the complexity of the international debt owed to the U.S, and the decline of international trade. In addition, the failure of the bank system and the reckless investments that banks, businesses and the American public made contributed to the manifestation of the Great Depression.
The Great Depression is known as the greatest time of recession in American history. Many factors contributed to this hard time. With the stock market boom in the 1920’s, our country was filled with optimism for the future. Although there were signs of problems to come former President Herbert Hoover was just as convinced as the nation that they were only going through a rough patch and would be back on their feet in no time. That was until the stock market crash of 1929, which marked the beginning of the Great Depression. The stock market crash led to bank and company failures. Many people became unemployed and had to leave their homes. Families also had to move away because of the drought that caused dust storms and ultimately the Dust Bowl. Soon enough, thousands were migrating to find jobs elsewhere. Eventually when former President Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected into office, he presented America with “The New Deal,” the plan that would save America and bring the nation up and out of the recession.
The US government’s role in the Great Depression has been very controversy. Different hypothesizes argued differently on the causes of the Great depression and whether the New Deal introduced by the government and President Roosevelt helped United States got out of the depression. I would argue that even though not the only factor, the US government did lead the country into the Great Depression and the New Deal actually delayed the recovery process. I will discuss five different factors (stock market crash, bank failure, tariff and tax cut, consumer spending and agriculture) that are commonly accepted to cause the depression and how the government linked to them. Furthermore, I will try to show how the government prolonged the depression in the United States by introducing the New Deal.
The Great Depression was a time when unemployment rates increased, people lost their life saving, and banks went on a crisis. The primary reason why this happened is because of consumer culture. Borrowing money was easier than ever in the 1920s. Buyers could easily pack a small percent of the stock price and borrow the rest from a broker. Consumers were buying goods at a rate higher than their income was expanding (6). However, as the market was rising, stockers were happy to lend money to anyone. The methods used to purchase items caused the stock market to collapse. Borrowing money became risky when starting a business because you could only hope for profit. However, purchasing on layway and going into debt was becoming acceptable (6). This encouraged the continuation of these methods which lead to something greater. Consumer culture occurring in the 1920s is the primary reason why the Great Depression occurred. Consumers were using purchasing methods such as buying on the margin and layaway which caused the stock market to crash in the 30s.
Most believe that the Great Depression is a direct result of the Stock Market crash in 1929 when in fact it was merely a trigger. However, there were several more reasons that ultimately led to the depression. Many Americans, mainly of the middle and upper classes felt very euphoric due to the recent success of the nation’s economy. This lead to many hard working Americans to invest in too risky, wilder investments. Three additional principal explanations for the collapse of Wall Street and the American economy included international economic despairs, poor income distribution, and the psychology of public confidence (site textbook). A healthy economy could easily recover from such woes, therefor it is ridiculous to say the stock market crash was the single cause of the Great Depression.
The Great Depression was the deepest and longest-lasting economic downfall in the history of the United Sates. No event has yet to rival The Great Depression to the present day today although we have had recessions in the past, and some economic panics, fears. Thankfully the United States of America has had its shares of experiences from the foundation of this country and throughout its growth many economic crises have occurred. In the United States, the Great Depression began soon after the stock market crash of October 1929, which sent Wall Street into a panic and wiped out millions of investors ("The Great Depression."). In turn from this single tragic event, numerous amounts of chain reactions occurred.