The Great Depression was the worst economic setback the U.S. has ever endured. It lasted ten long years from 1929 to 1939. It caused severe unemployment, the stock market to crash and massive deflation. The three main causes of the depression were the shutting down of banks, unwise consumer practices and the failure of the farming industry.
To begin with, the first cause of the Great Depression was the bank failures during that time. Prior to the Stock Market Crash of 1929, banks were renting out money to consumers without doing any kind of speculations. The people who rented the money would then go on and invest that money into the stock market not knowing it was going to crash. Once the market crashed, banks were dealt with a huge deficit
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Banks themselves were to blame as well. Many banks also invested money into the stock market, that the public had deposited in their banks. Once the market crashed the banks lost all of the public's lifetime savings. The panicked citizens then rushed into banks to withdraw as much money they could to save their life earnings. These waves of banking panics would later be called "Bank Runs". A document which supports why bank failures were a cause of the Great Depression is document 4 which states, "First of all let me state the simple fact that when you deposit money in a bank the bank does not put the money into a safe deposit vault. It invests your money in many different forms of credit-bonds, commercial paper, mortgages and many other kinds of loans.'' (Doc. 4 Franklin D. Roosevelt). From this it is shown that the president at that time, Roosevelt, clearly states that the banks were "playing" with the money of the U.S. citizens. This comes to support the prior information because the banks were in fact not keeping the lifesavings of the public safe but instead investing it for their own benefit. Another document
There are many things that factor in as causing The Great Depression. I believe the biggest factors to be money and confidence. Even though by year end of 1930 the stock market had recouped some of the money lost in the previous years’ loss with the devastating Black Tuesday. The US and the rest of the world would continue to feel the devastating effects of banks failing, high unemployment rates, reduced trade and purchasing of over produced goods, and a negative impact to agricultural. This would not only put a dent in the people’s confidence with the stock market and banks but also government would need to step up in a big way to get things somewhat back on track.
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 Great Depression was an economic collapse that began in 1929 and ended in 1938. During the Depression most citizens went through hardship .Three main causes of the Great Depression were the stock market crash of 1929, the Dust Bowl, and Bank failures.
The Great Depression has to one of the most “Depressing” time that America has ever been through thus far. I say that because that specific event hit directly at home and pretty much everyone was affected. At the end of this event many changes in organization of government and relief/recovery efforts for unemployed people. President Roosevelt sought out to help this people, creating new organizations made specifically for a certain help. Under his rule the entire government had went through a type of renovation through his efforts.
The Great Depression was a time period when the US economy was in bad conditions. It lasted from 1929 to 1941, 12 years. The Great Depression was caused by over producing supplies and the stock market crash. Before the New Deal many Americans lived in makeshift communities called Hoovervilles because they couldn’t afford living in their houses any longer. Some people starved because they couldn’t pay for food or the food wasn’t able to get to their towns.
There were many causes to the Great Depression. Many people would debate how many there were exactly. Out of all of them, here are four of the bigger ones. International payment problems, unequal distribution of wealth, the banking system, and overproduction.
Contrary to popular belief, the Great Depression went beyond the shore of the United States and had a major impact on multiple countries. All countries involved in trade with the United States were greatly affected- one of these being Germany. When our stock market crashed, the production of various products were put to an abrupt hault. Without the necessary money and supplies to manufacture products, there was no way to do so. Then, this resulted in the loss of jobs by many factory workers bringing the unemployment rate in the US to a mind-boggling 24.75% in 1933.
Banks were losing a lot of money because people wanted to get their money out of the banks because most of the banks were shutting down. The banks were shutting down because they did not have the right money to keep things open and running right. People wanted to also get their money out of the bank because they started to need it for their families. Their families were probably starting to get low on stuff and started to need money and then the bank closes they wouldn’t have anything to live on. In less then one year over 4,000 of the United State banks closed. These are some of the reasons that the banks were closing
The Great Depression of the 1930s was caused by a sequence of events that all began with the stock market crash of 1929. The crash consisted of a rapidly declining stock market in the fall and a multitude of crashes in the month of October. All of this devastated the economy and resulted in bank failures, reduction in consumption and buying of goods, and an extremely high unemployment rate. Most banks closed but those that survived were: “unsure of the economic situation and concerned for their own survival, [banks] became unwilling to lend money” (Kelly). This meant that banks no longer trusted that their loans would be paid back and feared closing down so they became very frugal.
The great depression was caused by 4 main things. The lack of economic diversity was not having lots of money. Another was unequal wealth distribution which was either you were super rich or super poor. The banking system was unstable which meant loans were not being paid which means banks start charging interest. Lastly the international credit and trade issues was not being able to trade with other countries for resources.
The Great Depression was a huge economic downfall in North America and involved many other industrialized countries of the world. The Depression began in 1929 and lasted for about ten years. Millions of people lost their jobs along with many businesses going bankrupt. The common misconception of the Great Depression is people think that the stock market crash was the main cause for it. There were many causes for the Depression; unequal distribution of money during the 1920’s was the main cause of the Depression. This unequal distribution happened on many different classes of people. The imbalance of money is what created such an unstable economy. The stock market was doing much worse than people thought
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.
First, by examining how banks operated in the 1920s, one can see how the banks ‘spurred’ the crash. During the 1920s, people were content and the future seemed promising. The horrors of World War 1 were in the past and sons came marching home from the war. Consequently, life began to return to normal, and
Another cause that worsened the great depression is Bank Failure. After stock market crashed and everyone knew. Around 700 banks failed to keep up the last few month of 1929 and more than 3,000 closed in 1930. When the banks closed people lost money. People
There are various factors that led to the Great Depression. To begin, the lack of bank regulation was a big factor. The Federal Reserve Act which made banks have money on reserve, was not enforced. Another big factor was easy credit, Easy credit made it easy for people to get money out the bank without having the money to pay it back. Furthermore, the reduction in purchasing across the board can easily be said to be another key factor. With the stock market being down many people within every social class stop purchasing items. Which would cause a decreased not only the number of items being purchased but also the loss of people jobs. Many people had thing on layaway, so usually they would just pay for it monthly. However once they lost their