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How Did President Hoover Affect The Economy

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Herbert Hoover the son of a Quaker turned successful business person won the presidential election in November 1928, as representative to the republican party and truly a far-right wing conservative. Upon taking office President Hoover did not foresee the road of darkness ahead, and on October 29, 1929 the darkest road ever came to light. Labeled as Black Tuesday, the United States stock market crashed sending the country into a state of panic. In 1927, stock prices soared creating outrageous speculation of continued progressive growth. With extreme tax reductions, many American’s invested more heavily into the stock market, even in a weakening economy a recession did not seem on the brink. Amid harsh times with the stock market crashing, unemployment …show more content…

Millions of Americans lost their jobs, homes, and savings in just a short matter of time, and by the same token executives began taking extreme measures in preventing the inevitable from occurring with having to close its doors. President Hoover met with several top business owners such as Henry Ford, Alfred Sloan, and Pierre Dupont all from different business sectors in an attempt unfettered competition. President Hoover believed that unfettered competition would create lower prices which in turn would lead to lower wages. Despite a weakening economy President Hoover instructed companies to keep wage rates at current level and stop layoffs with work sharing by dividing work shifts among employees. In return he would convince workers not to strike or ask for extra pay and benefits. Unfortunately, prices for industrial goods declined due in part to the economy wide deflation brought on by the federal reserve tight money policy. This would lead to companies backing out its earlier deal with President Hoover and begin to laying off drastically. When the Great Depression first hit unemployment was at 3.2% and climbed to 23.6% by 1932 under Hoover’s administration. Furthermore, President Hoover thought to tax the top income bracket at a much higher rate between 25% as high as 63% during his attempt to engineer the economy back to

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