Thursday, March 10, 2011
The Great Depression
As we've been going over in class, there have been many causes of the Great Depression. Recessions in a capitalist economy are common occurance, but not to the extent of the Great Depression. What do you think was the single most important cause of the Great Depression based on what you've learned in class the past few days and why? (Remember, the stock market crash was not really a cause, but more like the single event that started the Great Depression.)
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I would say the ability to get credit without any regulation was the most important cause of not only the Great Depression, but the housing crash leading to the current recession.
ReplyDeleteThe single most important cause was credit. It made the whole economy crazy. Also the ability to buy a house and make payments when ever was a problem as well
ReplyDeleteI think the most important cause was the sky rocketing busniesses because people were so wrapped up in all this income and being able to spend all this money it created bad habits in people. I believe that it began to consume people so much, they started to become less smart about it. They only focased on there wealth now, instead of what could happen if it contuined. In result uncontrolable amounts of loans and credit being given to people who couldnt pay them, and the start of the great depresstion.
ReplyDeleteI think the most important cause was that people invested there money in stocks and if the stocks did not sell they would lose there money that they invested. This is how most people lost money because they sometimes had to payback the loans and if they were not able to pay them back, then the banks would lose there money.
ReplyDeleteI think the most important cause was the lack of laws which were supposed to regulate the market. In those years everyone was allowed to make so much money and to invest it at will; that capitalist and consumer society didn't impose limits. At the end the great depression started when it was discovered that people were less rich than what they thought and they've already wasted their savings.
ReplyDeleteThere were not enough regulations on the market and in the economy as a whole. Everyone was able to get a loan, banks were giving out money and they didn't have any backups. That was, I believe, the major issue. If the banks had had the capital to give people their money back, the depression wouldnt have reached such a deep bottom. Even if the stock market crashed, it wouldn't have such an impact on the economy. Big businesses should also be blamed. The government should have regulated them both much more.
ReplyDeleteBased on what we learned in class I think that the most important cause of the Great Depression was the non regulation of the businesses. Harding & Coolidge didn't regulate the businesses much & they left the decisions to greedy financiers. Obviously those greedy financiers don't really care much about anything except for the money they are making, so leaving them in charge of decisions was not a very smart idea. Teddy Roosevelt thought that it was important to not get rid of businesses or just leave them but to regulate them and that is exactly the opposite of what these two presidents did. The fact these big powering businesses were not properly regulated I think was the most important reason for the Great Depression, they should have been regulated.
ReplyDeleteRelating to what was spoken about and worked on in class, I believe that the main cause of the Great Depression was the Banks' speculation combined with the ignorance of industry (relating to their blatant over-production. I think that these are the main causes because, first off, the bank's speculation was the eventual cause of the stock market crash which lead to/ was shortly followed by the beginning of the Great Depression. Second, the fact that business' (the auto industry in particular)kept their production levels high while their sales were drastically falling led to an enormous waste of money and resources. The production also maintained a false sense of security for the workers, who, when laid off, had no plan or savings that would help them through the tough times that were coming. They were caught completely unaware.
ReplyDeleteI believe that The great depresión started because when water went up inflación stayed The same making people believe they had more money so when inflación finally went up wages stayed The same and people wouldnt buy anything because they didnt have enough money and inflación continued to grow
ReplyDeleteThe single most important cause of the Great Depression was definitely the banks; more specifically the banks giving away credit without a care in the world. Saying that, the only reason the banks carelessly gave away credit was because of the outcome of WWI. People easily got jobs which means more money (or so they thought), and invested it. So the single most important cause of the Great Depression might very well be the end of WWI.
ReplyDeleteBanks giving out big loans to people without checking their background and some of them couldn't really pay it back.
ReplyDeleteI think the single most important cause of the Great Depression was the presidents, Harding and Coolidge. They took a hands off approach to regulating business and things got out of control. They let greedy business leaders make important decisions and didn't want to interrupt the prosperity of the businesses. They should have intervened long before things got out of hand and the businesses were producing at a high rate with no demand for their products.
ReplyDeleteThe most important cause of the Great Depression was probably inflation. Since there was little inflation in the early 20s, people thought they had a lot more money. When prices eventually did start rising, the rose very little and nobody really noticed. If inflation had been at a steady rate, the Depression may have never happened
ReplyDeleteI think speculation of other peoples money and stock was a major factor in the cause of the Great Depression. Banks gave credit, even to those who were unreliable. Brokers began using the banks loans to buy stock, which wasn't worth as much as they believed. Ultimately, the banks are to blame for the depression because they allowed this to happen.
ReplyDeleteI think the single most important cause of the Great Depression, based on what we've learned in class, was because of the presidents that were in power before. President Warren G. Harding's presidency had ended in scandal & corruption & following him was president Calvin Coolidge. Coolidge believed that the prosperity rested on business leadership and that his part as president was to make sure the govt. interfered with business as little as possible. Coolidge focused more on restoring integrity to the presidency. Coolidge promised to give the US the "normalcy" that Harding had failed to give to the US but in my opinion neither did he. Both presidents took a very "hands off" approach to regulating business because they didn't want to interrupt prosperity. Instead they left the decisions to be made by greedy financiers which eventually in time caused the US to go through a crash in US economy & thus the Great Depression shortly began.
ReplyDeleteWell from what I've learned in class I think that the most important causes of the great depression are 2. First of all since in the early 20's the u.s had faced a very good moment for his economy and people had gotten way more money than before people got used to spend, spend and spend. Since inflation didnt go up for a while buying was easier for everybody, but once inflation went up (because of several reasons like the re-birth of the european market) people had already spent all their money because they were confident that things would keep going well. A secondary problem but not less important is that at the end of 20's almost everybody already had a car (if not more than one) so the request in the car industry went drastically down but the production kept going as fast as before the depression. A lot of other industries were releated to the car industry so they all got into a period of low earnings and crisis that meant for the industries that they had to fire big amounts of employees. With an high rate of unemployment a nation's economy cannot run because people have no money to spend and no money to put into banks; the consequences are that bank cannot loan money anymore so people cant start new businesses or buy houses either. Not regulating banks was another big error that contributed "helping" the great depression, money were loaned to people too easily and so once people had to give the money back a lot of times they were gone because they couldnt pay them back.
ReplyDeleteI think the based causes of great depression is the price of goods. After a wonderful period of economic booming, Americans started to be used to fancy life style. Bases on the price of goods raise up, Americans couldn't pay the money back to the bank. Credit system break downed and a lot of bankrupt happened. People didn't have enough money to buy products and the whole economic slow down. Companies didn't hire people, so people got lesser and lesser money. Finally, great depression happened.
ReplyDeleteI think the a big cause of the great depression would be the stock market crash and deficite spending, people would buy things with out caring and spent there money on whatever because everything was mostly offortable to the families and there was no inflation on prices so spending all there money wasnt a problem.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the Great Depression was mostly caused in the economic boom and people's confidence in money. Money was thrown around during this time and many people made decisions without thinking, like buying stock without being truly sure if it was a good idea. People gambling and also the effects of prohibition probably played a role in the Depression also. Businesses not being regulated played a large role in the Great Depression and crash of the stock market.
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