The Great Depression of 1929
Activity 1: Thesis
Starting in the United States of America, the Great Depression was one of the biggest economic tragedy across the world. The Great Depression was a period of poverty and despair caused by a combinations of different events that include stock market crush, reduction in purchasing, the policy of American in Europe economic, and drought conditions during that time. history indicates that the Great Depression started on September 4th, 1929. The Depression in America created a hardship and tension that escalate and affect economy many years down the line. During the industrial world, the Great Depression was the worst economic drop of all times. The three most important problems to remember about the Great Depression are the crashed markets, destroyed economy, and high rate of unemployment.
The Great Depression started because the stock market crashed in 1929 and ended in 1939. During this period of economic depression, approximately 15 million Americans lost their employment and more than a half of the banks in the country failed making it one of the darkest economic era in the United States. The Great Depression lead to failure of stock markets making it unfavorable for people with money in the market to invest. The impact of this event lead to significant loses, where people with money in the market could not retrieve their money because banks was also forced to shut down because they were depending directly on the stock market. There were many businesses and industries working hand in hand with stock market, and its closure means that their capital and savings were lost.
After shutting down the stock markets, companies and industries was forced to lay off a significant number of employees because they could not pay them. Life was difficult for the families and some was forced to sell their houses and move to apartments while others had to live together since living standards was deteriorating day by day. During the time of Great Depression, paying rent was a difficult thing to achieve and the rate of separation and divorce went down significantly. Every partner was in need of each other to contribute in paying rent and providing for the family in terms of food and other needs. The crashed markets, destroyed economy and high rate of unemployment are three important things to remember about the difficult time of the Great Depression.
Activity 2: Bibliography
Ohanian, Lee E. “What–or who–started the great depression?” Journal of Economic Theory 144.6 (2009): 2310-2335.
Lee in his article focused on various circumstances that led to the Great Depression. He also provided an economic analysis looking at different policies and the efforts of the government during that period. Lee also managed to look at the issue of high unemployment rates and high wages during the Great Depression. The article also highlights the contribution of the trade union towards starting the Great Depression.
Cecchetti, Stephen G. Understanding the Great Depression: Lessons for current policy. National Bureau of Economic Research, 1997.
The article by Cecchetti focuses on the circumstances that lead to the collapse of the economy in 1929. The article provides a detailed discussion about how deflation played a critical role in expanding depression. This article also provides some of the lessons that people learn from the Great Depression and how it can be used to inform policy making.
Kindleberger, Charles Poor. The world in depression, 1929-1939. University of California Press, 1986.
This article by Kindleberger focuses on the key factors that lead to financial crash of 1929. The three primary factors that shaped Global Financial Markets according to the article include the panic, the power of contagion and the importance of hegemony. The article also describes the economy of the Great Depression as well as explaining the adverse effects of unstable international economic structure.
Ng, Kenneth. “The Causes of the 1929 Stock Market Crash: A Speculative Orgy or a New Era?” The Journal of Economic History 59.2 (1999): 548-549.
In his article Ng, Kenneth analyzes the causes of stock market crash in 1929. The author highlighted that some of the factors that contributed to crash include excessive investor speculation and stock evaluation being too high. Lack of information by the individuals in charge of economy lead to stock crash. The article is very crucial in explaining the beginning of the Great Depression.
Kimberly, Amadeo. “The Balance.” 27 May 2020. The Great Depression, What Happened, What Caused It, How It Ended. <https://www.thebalance.com/the-great-depression-of-1929-3306033>.
The article by Kimberly describes how the Great Depression affected all the aspects of the society. It provides important statistics concerning the rate of unemployment focusing on the nation’s workforce and American gross domestic product. The article also explains some of the factors that lead to the Great Depression for instance the use of tight monetary policies at the wrong time. The author in the article also indicated what ended the Great Depression highlighting the provision of unemployment insurance.