Analyze The Causes Of The Great Depression

The Great Depression left the American banking system in shambles and left the American people broken and scared for their futures. There were several causes that led up to the enactment of the New Deal and the Social Security Act. A major cause was "Black Tuesday." This was the largest stock market crash in U.S. history that took place on October 29, 1929. The crash happened because wealthy Americans used their revenue to speculate in real estate and the stock market rather than invest in new businesses. Another cause was U.S. banks issuing loans and credits to foreign governments in the amount of billions of dollars. Prior to the Great Depression and the enactment of the FERA, relief was based on the poor laws.

The Great Depression first started as early as 1928, but did not affect the United States until 1929. The Great Stock Market crash started the event of the Depression here in America, but was not the main cause to why it happened. During the early stages of the depression, President Hoover failed to help the economy and continued with his belief system of giving people the least help they needed, so they can earn themselves a rightful spot with pride, not with government’s help. The Great Depression was a very intense experience for us, even until today, the

The Great Depression, however inevitable, took the world by surprise when the stock market crashed in 1929. At first people did not fully understand the state of the economy, they could not wrap their heads around the transition from popping champagne bottles to eating bread crumbs for dinner. People were expecting a quick fix to the problem, assuming their lives to go back to normal after a few months, tragically underestimating the situation America was in. As a result, no one was prepared to properly combat the extreme shortage of food, jobs, and money in the years to come.

The Great Depression started in 1929 and lasted up until 1939. It happens to be the worst economic downturn for the United States and the the rest of the world. It caused companies and corporations to eventually go bankrupt as well as workers to be laid off. Another effect of The Great Depression is that factory production was reduced, and the banks started to shut down. In the lowest point of The Great Depression in 1933 nearly 15 million workers in America were unemployed and one half of the banks started shutting down.

The first main cause of the Great Depression was The Stock Market Crash of 1929. On October 29, 1929 the New York Stock Exchange experienced a huge downfall that was detrimental to the US economy. For example, in Document 3 the title of the newspaper article is, “Stock prices Slump $14,000,000,000 In Nationwide Stampede To Unload Bankers To Support The Market Today.” These losses that occurred because of this crash were probably the most devastating ever experienced in the stock market. Because of

The Great Depression in the U.S history was a time where there was very little jobs and some money. Banks had very little money so most people couldn’t get money out. It was a hard time in U.S history for people when this was going on. The stock market crash a horrible time for people when they had some money and very little jobs. Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to help by creating The New Deal. The great dustbowl affected farmers and the change in farming affected the economy. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, the author Harper Lee illustrates The Great Depression was a worldwide economic slump of the 1930’s.

The Great Depression remains to be the worst economic slump ever in American history and one which spread practically all over the industrialized world. The Depression bombarded in late 1929 and lasted nearly a decade. Many factors elemented the depth of the widespread prosperity. However, combined, the greatly unequal distribution of wealth throughout the 1920's and the extensive stock market speculation that took place during the latter part that same decade remain the key of all elements.

The causes of the Great Depression in the early 20th century is a matter of active debate between economists. Although the popular belief is that the main cause was the crashing Stock Market in 1929 caused the Great Depression, There were other major economic events that contributed just as much as the crash, such as American’s overextension of credit, an unequal distribution of wealth, over production of goods, and a severe drop in business revenue. As these events transpired the state of economic crisis in the US began to skyrocket.

As prices would go down farmers produced more to try and make up for it, except that as they produced more prices dropped. Fourth was that the bands were unstable. They would loan out way too much money riskily and have a low amount of reserves since there was little enforcement for these types of bank regulation. The one who was supposed to regulate them was a large business owner himself and he wasn’t to keen on interfering with business. Wo when the economy slowed down and people went back to the banks to get their money there was none to take, forcing the banks to start calling back in loans and foreclosing on people. Even with that banks still didn’t have enough money so they had to close, leaving a lot of people without money. Fifth was overspeculation which included a lot of consumer credit and margin buying. This fits in with the last explanation of what happens when the banks had to start calling in loans, but no one had the money to pay it so many were foreclosed on. Sixth was that there was a sort of overconfidence in the American people. They had this false belief that the economy was going to keep growing so they failed to save enough money to withstand the slowdown. All of these weaknesses in the 1920’s economy led to a greater slowdown of the economy leading into the Great Depression.

The most searing legacy of the depression was unemployment, which mounted steadily from the relatively low levels experienced between 1922 and 1929. The percentage of the civilian labor force without work rose from 3.2 in 1929 to 8.7 in 1930, and reached a peak of 24.9 in 1933. The estimates of unemployment amongst non-farm employees, which include the self-employed and unpaid family workers are even higher. These are horrifying figures: millions of American families were left without a bread-winner and faced the very real possibility of destitution.11

The Great Depression brought hunger, homelessness, and hardship to millions of Americans. One quarter of the country was unemployed, and over one million families lost their farms. People struggled to make enough money just to buy food to stay alive. Even bakers could not buy their own bread. The government did little to stop the suffering.

In the 1920s, American economy had a great time. The vast majority of Americans in 1929 foresaw a continuation of the dizzying economic growth that had taken place in most of the decade. However, the prices of stock crested in early September of 1929. The price of stock fell gradually during most of September and early October. On “Black Tuesday” 29 October 1929, the stock market fell by forty points. After that, a historically great and long economic depression started and lasted until the start of the Second World War. The three causes of the Great Depression are installment buying, uneven distribution of wealth and the irrational behavior in the stock market.

Many people think that the Great Depression was caused solely by the stock market crash. Anybody who tells you this probably didn’t pass U.S. History in high school. The fact is, the Great Depression was caused many different factors. Four of which were overproduction, uneven distribution of wealth, protective tariffs, and the four “sick industries” of the 1920’s.

The banking industry as a whole after the stock market crashed was going bankrupt due to not being able to carry the “bad debt” that was created from using customer money to buy stock. Because the banks were out of money, they were unable to cover customer withdrawals from their bank, causing many bank customers to lose all of their savings. With the uncertainty of the future of the banking industry, many people withdrew all of their savings, which caused more than 9,000 banks to close their doors and go out of business (Kelly). Due to the effects of the Great Depression, and the collapse of the banking industry, the government created regulations to prevent similar failure in the future. For Example, the SEC, (or Securities Exchange Commission), which regulates the sell and trade of stocks, bonds and other investments was created as a result of The Great Depression. The FDIC (or Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation), was created to insure bank accounts so that that the consumer would be protected if the bank were to go out of business (Kelly). The Great Depression's effect on the banking industry led to many useful changes to the banking industry and helped restore confidence in banks in the American people.

The great depression was one of the worst economy issues we have ever had in history. It was a hard time for everyone. The great depression started in 1929 till 1939. Tons of banks closed down and about 9 million savings accounts were lost. Tons of companies and factories went under. About 15 million people were unemployed.