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Post by Deleted on Dec 4, 2011 14:35:15 GMT -5
So we've just started studying the Depression in history class, looking at a couple of perspectives and trying to lay a finger on the causes and stuff. The crash in October 1929 was the catalyst, kinda, but it wasn't the only thing behind it. Some of the causes we've heard about:
- People buying excessively with money they did not actually have - Dramatic increases in spending, taxes, and tariffs - Overproduction - Wealth disparity
And I'm curious about other perspectives. Opinions vary wildly on the causes, as well as on whether or not the Roosevelt Administration exacerbated the Depression. So...what were the factors, exactly? What caused the crash? Where did the Hoover (or Roosevelt) Administration go wrong? Also, for a bonus: how much would you say the Depression parallels today's recession?
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Post by Deleted on Dec 4, 2011 14:54:20 GMT -5
My dad once made a joke that a company made huge spaceships and overspending on spaceships caused the Depression. XD
In all seriousness, Nat, I think you're about right. There was more than one cause. I think one contribution might have been the scandals during the Harding presidency.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 4, 2011 15:08:32 GMT -5
My dad once made a joke that a company made huge spaceships and overspending on spaceships caused the Depression. XD In all seriousness, Nat, I think you're about right. There was more than one cause. I think one contribution might have been the scandals during the Harding presidency. Could you explain that last bit, please? There were scandals, yeah, but I don't think they would have been enough to crash the country over four years later. xD What specific scandals are you thinking of?
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Post by Deleted on Dec 4, 2011 15:24:23 GMT -5
My dad once made a joke that a company made huge spaceships and overspending on spaceships caused the Depression. XD In all seriousness, Nat, I think you're about right. There was more than one cause. I think one contribution might have been the scandals during the Harding presidency. Could you explain that last bit, please? There were scandals, yeah, but I don't think they would have been enough to crash the country over four years later. xD What specific scandals are you thinking of? People lost faith in the President and so gave up all their trust to the next one (Coolidge) to fix everything and one man couldn't do it.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 4, 2011 15:33:56 GMT -5
Could you explain that last bit, please? There were scandals, yeah, but I don't think they would have been enough to crash the country over four years later. xD What specific scandals are you thinking of? People lost faith in the President and so gave up all their trust to the next one (Coolidge) to fix everything and one man couldn't do it. To fix what, though? The market was booming at the time. In hindsight, things were screwed up, but few people actually knew that the economy would come to a disastrous crash. They didn't make Coolidge president because they'd lost faith in Harding. He was already president because Harding had died in office. I think you've mixed up Coolidge with Hoover? The economy didn't fall to pieces until sometime after he became president.
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Post by Ian Wolf-Park on Dec 4, 2011 17:57:39 GMT -5
Another factor that probably contributed to the Great Depression was the weather as that affected the number of crops produced. I do remember that there were some parts of the US and Canada (probably Midwest as I am unfamiliar with US history) that had a severe drought. At that time, the US (and Canada) were mainly argriculture oriented rather than service oriented.
And probably the main parallel between the Great Depression and the current recession is the fact that people were buying with money that they really did not have. After all, it was the sub-prime mortgages that became the catalyst for this recession.
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Post by Char on Dec 4, 2011 18:56:08 GMT -5
You're talking about the Dust Bowl, Lupehunter. It added to the unemployment associated with other problems at the time, like the Crash which was the culmination of severe deflation, and soon a lot of people were living in the streets as they were unable to pay their rents.
Deflation was a huge problem because it was a vicious cycle. As more and more products became available the excess became stored in warehouses and was left to rot. Soon there was too much, prices bombed, companies were forced to lay off workers since production stagnated, unemployment soared, and it all just went to the dogs, to say the least!
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Post by Jacob on Dec 11, 2011 13:06:29 GMT -5
So overproduction was the cause of not only old problems, but new ones as well? You would think people would realize their mistakes and produce less to make a more stable environment, but no...
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Post by Deleted on Jan 7, 2012 23:42:57 GMT -5
History class ponderings again. (And nah, I'm not asking you to do my homework for me.) We've lately been going over the New Deal, and amidst the massive barrage of legislation to memorize, I've been unsure of how to feel about the thing as a whole. Before this, I hadn't thought much of how drastically the role of the government has changed over the past century. It's a little weird and sudden, all this legislation suddenly bursting into being like a million popcorn kernels. There was progressive stuff from Teddy Roosevelt and Wilson, but FDR seemed to take it to a new level. It's understandable, given the Great Depression, but I'm not sure how effective it even was. ?_? There were programs putting men and women back to work and there were programs regulating things, and not all of them were effective or even constitutional. In 1937, at the beginning of FDR's second term, a nasty recession cropped up. The textbook blames it on Social Security cutting into wages--my dad, on the other hand, says it arose because the government wasn't spending enough. The Social Security explanation makes more "sense" to me, primarily because I don't understand how Keynesian economics are supposed to work. Then again, I don't understand how economics in general are supposed to work. I mean, I love history, but economics just turns my brain into cold porridge. No matter how much I Google it, I never really "get" how Keynesian economics work. So...did the New Deal help or hurt the economy? Was it effective?
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