A short history of the Great Depression

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/g/great_depression_1930s/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier

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The Great Depression was a worldwide economic crisis that in the United States was marked by widespread unemployment, near halts in industrial production and construction, and an 89 percent decline in stock prices. It was preceded by the so-called New Era, a time of low unemployment when general prosperity masked vast disparities in income.

The start of the Depression is usually pegged to the stock market crash of “Black Tuesday,” Oct. 29, 1929, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell almost 23 percent and the market lost between $8 billion and $9 billion in value. But it was just one in a series of losses during a time of extreme market volatility that exposed those who had bought stocks “on margin” – with borrowed money.

The stock market continued to decline despite brief rallies. Unemployment rose and wages fell for those who continued to work. The use of credit for the purchase of homes, cars, furniture and household appliances resulted in foreclosures and repossessions. As consumers lost buying power industrial production fell, businesses failed, and more workers lost their jobs. Farmers were caught in a depression of their own that had extended through much of the 1920s. This was caused by the collapse of food prices with the loss of export markets after World War I and years of drought that were marked by huge dust storms that blackened skies at noon and scoured the land of topsoil. As city dwellers lost their homes, farmers also lost their land and equipment to foreclosure.

President Herbert Hoover, a Republican and former Commerce secretary, believed the government should monitor the economy and encourage counter-cyclical spending to ease downturns, but not directly intervene. As the jobless population grew, he resisted calls from Congress, governors, and mayors to combat unemployment by financing public service jobs. He encouraged the creation of such jobs, but said it was up to state and local governments to pay for them. He also believed that relieving the suffering of the unemployed was solely up to local governments and private charities.

By 1932 the unemployment rate had soared past 20 percent. Thousands of banks and businesses had failed. Millions were homeless. Men (and women) returned home from fruitless job hunts to find their dwellings padlocked and their possessions and families turned into the street. Many drifted from town to town looking for non-existent jobs. Many more lived at the edges of cities in makeshift shantytowns their residents derisively called Hoovervilles. People foraged in dumps and garbage cans for food.

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Excellent movie, made in the late 30's. Get the DVD or see if your library has it.

http://www.amazon.com/Grapes-Wrath-Henry-Fonda/dp/B0000DJZ8R/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1258822234&sr=1-1

sometimes. :hi:

Time. Steinbeck was so forceful in depicting the scenario that real people lived through. It made me ill to try and read too much of it.

I applaud you and and your son for sitting and reading it.

And in some ways, that Depression is just a little taste of what will come when the current Geithner/Bernanke dollar prop up falls apart. We now live in a world of condo associations that won't allow a banner flown on your balcony to celebrate the New Baby cming home. And cities that tag the homeless asleep in their cars with $ 200 tickets. What got many people through those times were the tent cities on the outskirts of places like Chicago.

Thirty four states had banned Foreclosure in the thirties. Has even a single
state done so yet?

Almost all our state legislators are in the pocket of the Big Money people.

And our Congress and the Exec at 1600 Pennsylvannia don't seem much better.

Its like living in a rerun, unable to get out.

improve, the worst is yet to come.

Otherwise...

If the food banks are empty, we won't see people standing in lines, will we? If there are no soup kitchens how can we tell how many people are hungry? 50% of children are on foodstamps. THAT is the 21st century bread line.

Plus it was American banks calling in their war loans on Europe, and Germany was squeezed for reparations that went to those loans.

"By Nick Taylor is the author of “American-Made,” a 2008 history of the Works Progress Administration."

I have that "American Made" in Audible.com, and had listened to it about a month ago. I was just this moment wondering what to listen to next. That settles it; I'll listen to it again!

pnorman

and am into the second hour of it. Even better on the second listen!

pnorman