LookieNoNookie
Posts: 12216
Joined: 8/9/2008 Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Musicmystery Ken, if you want to take that tack, you've a lot of explaining to do. "Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Great Depression Longest and most severe economic depression ever experienced by the Western world. It began in the U.S. soon after the New York Stock Market Crash of 1929 and lasted until about 1939. By late 1932 stock values had dropped to about 20% of their previous value, and by 1933 11,000 of the U.S.'s 25,000 banks had failed. These and other conditions, worsened by monetary policy mistakes and adherence to the gold standard, led to much-reduced levels of demand and hence of production, resulting in high unemployment (by 1932, 25 – 30%). Since the U.S. was the major creditor and financier of postwar Europe, the U.S. financial breakdown precipitated economic failures around the world, especially in Germany and Britain. Isolationism spread as nations sought to protect domestic production by imposing tariffs and quotas, ultimately reducing the value of international trade by more than half by 1932. The Great Depression contributed to political upheaval. It led to the election of U.S. Pres. Franklin Roosevelt, who introduced major changes in the structure of the U.S. economy through his New Deal. The Depression also advanced Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany in 1933 and fomented political extremism in other countries. Before the Great Depression, governments relied on impersonal market forces to achieve economic correction; afterward, government action came to assume a principal role in ensuring economic stability." "US History Encyclopedia: Great Depression Great Depression, the longest, deepest, and most pervasive depression in American history, lasted from 1929 to 1939. Its effects were felt in virtually all corners of the world, and it is one of the great economic calamities in history. In previous depressions, such as those of the 1870s and 1890s, real per capita gross domestic product (GDP)—the sum of all goods and services produced, weighted by market prices and adjusted for inflation—had returned to its original level within five years. In the Great Depression, real per capita GDP was still below its 1929 level a decade later." Bank failures did, indeed reach their height in 1933, but that hardly signals the end of the depression. Nor does anemic recovery. And yes, 37 was better than 33, but that's hardly a case for the depression ending in 33. Reminds me of Nixon's bullshit about the rate of increase decreasing. Gross domestic product 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 103.6 91.2 76.5 58.7 56.4 66.0 73.3 83.8 91.9 86.1 92.2 Since you're such a bastion of knowledge on economics, I'm confident that you also know that a depression, just like a recession is deemed to be in one (recession / depression) when GDP contracts. As clearly shown by the above Govt. stats, that ceased to be an issue at the end of 1933 (which as I recall, was what DomKen quite correctly asserted). DomKen was dead on....the depression was no longer as of the end of 1933. Did it feel like a depression to those that remained? Uh huh, because GDP was still running 35% or more below peak...but the depression was as of then, by definition...no longer. The guitar player missed it (naturally) by 7 years solely because he read one poorly researched article, written by someone who clearly has limited knowledge of economics or history (much like the guitar player) and accepted it without question because it came from an "encyclopedia", yet fairly consistently comes online to effusively lard on to those who don't know better...his "extensive" econ knowledge. Let's make a deal MM...you quit trying to explain economics to anyone...we won't tell you how to play guitar. (Don't give up your day job).
< Message edited by LookieNoNookie -- 10/13/2008 7:24:23 AM >
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