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Hard Times and the 29 Crash

Added Mar 03, 2013 •

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February 1928 stock prices begin a steady climb that will double Dow Jones Industrial Average and just 18 months trading mushrooms from two million shares a day to over five million shares stock prices increase in average speculation is in test that consumers are cotton don't put your money in the bank by even if you have to borrow money why would you want to buy a new automobile going to depreciate General Motors stock people into the stock market and of course many of them land began to borrow money in order to purchase stock on margin you can pay off your Brokers low can you can still have a tidy Capital game it was wonderful the problem is that in a bull market like that in order to make a capital gain there always have to be need more buyers than sellers October 1929 there were hints of trouble on the 21st and 23rd alarming declines in stock prices followed by temporary recovery JP Morgan and some other leading financiers and tried to band together to coordinate wholesale buying stop the market and put a limit to the decline in in the values of stuff it was a sense that this is a if we all act responsibly and with a certain amount of economic current  but then on October 29th black Tuesday it all comes tumbling down efforts to save the market at fails these were days on the New York Exchange where unprecedented volume stop sold and of course the values of stocks plummeted inside in lower Manhattan clearly there was a lot of distress the Great Depression came as a surprise to most people but if you look closely you can see that there were signs that the economy was not quite as healthy as it seemed in the late twenties first of all the agricultural economy was quite a much larger role in the American June 20th send it to did the later years and being depressed through most of the decade secondly the automobile economy play about 1927 and dropping quite rapidly in terms of sales in 1929 because it is saturated the market and moved from supplying people with where is it never owned before to find people with replacement switches of small and Market even before the crash, took concern that The Fever of speculation is driving the price of stocks beyond the value of the companies themselves now whether the Federal Reserve for could have Titan integrate more dramatically weather that would have damp and some of the speculation I think a lot of economic historians down because so much money was flowing in to the Brokers loan Market from non-banking sources for example major corporations General Motors DuPont the Ford Motor Company were lending their Surplus in their corporate treasuries into the Brokers loan Market this was totally outside of the regulatory strut of the Federal Reserve the stock market crash of 1929 does not cause the depression rather accepted to motion a chain of events that exposes the American economy most people we're not invested in the market and relatively few people were directly affected by crash but what the crash did do was destabilize other areas of the economy took me the banking system a lot of banks has invested in the mark and have done so someone recklessly without retaining sufficient reserves to meet their depositors demands when mr. Hoover dad was to encourage the bankers organize something called the National Credit Corporation the idea was that the banks that were still sound would contribute two or three million dollars set their own money to help rescue the banks that were in danger of failing to meet their depositors demands for cash unfortunately that actors of the National Credit Corporation were bankers and they were reluctant to purchase these dubious assets of the banks we're in Jeopardy of failing and so the corporation never spent more than 1/3  of the resources it had available adding to the banking crisis is weekends delivery of American Business and Industry  the hardest hit sectors of the economy tend to be the older industrial sectors have been traditionally very large employers and indeed by the fall of 1929 account for fast portion of National Employment there are however certain segments of Industry that ironically enough continue to do well in the thirties newer Industries Michael's Electronics new processed foods appliance manufacturer petroleum the irony is that they account for small share of National Employment when the crisis begins in 1912 Lee early in their growth cycle also in some cases they work with relatively sophisticated Technologies and equipment that require fewer workers so as the older Industries are declining all of this on employment unemployment in the United States people are off work there's real pain there's hunger people are losing their houses bringing unprecedented despair to most segments of America agriculture is that particular hardship case deed in certain areas of the country Oklahoma the Alabama people are just forced off the land and these great migrations begin but the great disaster and what really lends to is that in 1932 the drought worse than there was lots and lots of explosives crap the wind came up kicked up this stuff result wear gigantic dust on a scale that no one has ever seen before dust storms that was so vast that they covered people's houses scary cars it buried animals the head of the country's soil Reclamation service Hugh Hammond Bennett testifying before Congress tries to Kayla just how serious the problem is that a giant dust storm has swept across the plains the week before and the he went over to the window and tore open the curtain and invited the center to come over and look out the window and that there was dust at that moment falling in Washington DC in fact us need fall on New York City and the dust from the Great Plains fell Miike Snow on the decks of ships at sea at the beginning of depression over half of all black Americans still live in the south the twenties and not a good. For block people in the rural areas and still a majority of locks over people in South White those who can get there and stay there tap into the new prosperity in America the coming of the depression just for sweets ladder out from under them in South blacks who are doing poorly fall to the very very bottom load run the conomic letter an American the most immediately thrown into unemployment and so these people who fart first really become death to quicker they have nothing to fall back they have no houses in which to rent room they have no savings to run through when black in the middle of the depression commented that the  it didn't have as great an effect on Max's on whites because blacks have been living in the depression all along there was something to that it certainly slow the pace migration to Northern cities and what kinds of jobs that were open to blacks in the twenties weren't available to anyone in the thirties so not respected it hits blacks hardest in the day of course dellums of copulation so blocks are among the first group to appear in these lines Nava people are looking for food looking for shelter out looking for clothing they will also face brutal discrimination most brutal in the South white Southerners will say almost in words that I'm going to paraphrase that is a time in the reasons trying to survive what Ray's left to keep people I will first go to whites because they are the ones who can preserve the United States the blacks will have to keep themselves the law and the best I can or die or whatever until the same gets better it is a bleak and dark chapter in African Americans similar patterns of discrimination confront Mexicans and Mexican Americans they were also hard hit by the economic depression because Mexicans and mexican-americans Ross and time the first to be fired from jobs when economic Hard Times demanded a restructuring of a local Workforce we can think about this in particular and places like California people in tens of thousands arriving from rural Midwest to California in search of work often times found themselves competing with local Mexicans and Mexican Americans for jobs in local Agriculture and local Urban Industries economic Hard Times lead to increasing hostility among racial groups local charity groups in places like Los Angeles and in many other cities denied welfare to people of Mexican descent during the economic depression and the thought of trying to survive the winter with no food Compton Mexicans to get on trains and return to Mexico where they hoped for life at the same time Mexican government officials advertised broadly in Mexican immigrant communities in the United States that now was the time turn home to the home land where people would not encounter racial discrimination where people could help build Mexico as a modern country roughly 500,000 repatriated in the early 1930s to Mexico from the United States as a result of the pressures of the economic depression Brazen Americans to the depression reinforce his long-standing patterns of discrimination in ways that sometimes insulate them from the distress of the moment you weren't on Wall Street something at no fortunes to lose even Factory close it really meant nothing or very little to Japanese American Working Class People went large numbers cuz they weren't admit it in the first place economic activity for Asian Americans takes place within their own Community they had not even began to panic the professions  I have not begun to enter into Finance manufacturing as your Democrats were already beginning to make their presence felt and again it's primarily because of the racial dividing line that they fell under that has non-white I must since regionally perhaps they were becoming at Force but they were by no means part of the mainstream economy Society or culture whose women have achieved in the workplace challenge during the Depression years  we would expect the married women would be pushed out of the labor force what's the result of the depression and as a result of enormous hostility during the Depression we're both men and women are saying one job per Family Y should one family have two jobs both for a husband and a wife and yet job segregation is such that even their husband is turn employed Voyage will seek to find women to feel certain kinds of jobs Wednesday hi women they can have a cheaper night before it turns out that the proportion of married women in the workforce doesn't drop during the Depression and 15% the names of sturdy 15% and then of course with World War II in the word immediately the nation certainly what reactions very critics are quick to condemn the country's social and economic system others clean fiercely Traditional Values the cultural ferment of the 1930s quiz directly result of the depression enormous unemployment the spread of poverty wealthy only already large groups of Americans who were poor prior to the depression he was also result of a new awareness of economical stitches been a part of American life for decades even centuries discovery of rural poverty for example by Urban educated people and by the government itself a recognition that the Newfound Poverty of the urban world wasn't Company by much older poverty in the world world  the movies become an incredibly important cultural force in America in in the 1930s and they are caught up in the politics of the time arguably the most popular filmmaker in the 1930s is a man by the name of Frank who made the so-called populist Trilogy these are all stories about the little guy in American society standing up for what's and taking America back from the elites who have corrupted America it's a profoundly reformist message it aligns Hollywood in some profound ways with the politics of the new deal at a time when corporations and the rich were thought to have left America astray in the 1930s political literature tends to adopt a more optimistic though no less radical view of society this is in part a result of the rise the popular from the American Communist Party during this period announced its willingness to Ally with other dissident groups and form of they called a pocket of the front are out of the parking for Kim this culture social realism is culture of the working class a lot of it came out of other Riders so it was a period in which a conventional twentieth-century culture consumer culture competed with culture and social forms of Century look like to reinterpret American history as history of the struggle of working people live in dignity and economic events. Herbert Hoover begins his presidency in March of 1929 we're leaving like most Americans that the nation faces a bright and prosperous future economic crisis 2 begins before the year is out forces him to deal with a very different set of problems he did try and a couple of notable cases to begin to use the power of the federal government to manage some of these economic issues the most significant one I think was his for what became known as the Agricultural Marketing Act in 1929 which in certain ways was the first is attempt by the federal government to try to manage the enormous agricultural surpluses that were being generated by the enormous productivity of American Farms the law ultimately allow the farm board to actually intervene in the market and to purchase Farm in order supposedly to prop up price the Fatal flaw in the program is that there were no efforts to control what the individual farmer was producing a lot of things I before to counteract the Great Depression towards the end of his creation he created number of agencies in Sacra very important to the New Deal including Reconstruction Finance Corporation which provided government money to to be invested in Providence oceans Banks and railroads that were in trouble because if they went bankrupt there was this fear that unemployment of course would increase to now he was immediately criticized Democratic party who basically said he's not providing any help to the unemployed to those who are really down and out so as result of that there were amendments passed which for the first time permitted the agency to make Direct Loans to counties to City governments the state governments in order to encourage them to create Public Works jobs for the first several years of the depression Americans arrived at or too confused to raise any effective protest but by the middle of 1932 dissident voices begin to be heard Farmers threatened how old a products from market and army of veterans bills boot camps around the nation's capital volume to stay until Congress approves their bonus pay protest do nothing to Bruce the president's popularity Herbert Hoover is a great mystery cause on paper  when he's President in 1928 you would think this guy is going to be all-time All-Star president he was a genius he had Advanced degrees in engineering from a week Mercy he had a remarkable amount of experience in government Sobe perception is that this guy is going to be the Babe Ruth of American politics know exactly what to do with any particular problems Faith his inaction in the face of the crisis is a great Buy medical mystery President Hoover needed someone who's not up to dealing with this crisis might be a nice guy by big confident engine year but she doesn't have any good ideas for dealing with these using traditional Republican prescriptions they don't work anymore at the beginning of 1932 Hoover was 01 popular the first thing any presidential candidates quit beating him and the fact that the Democrats nominated Franklin Roosevelt use evidence of Africa's Franklin Roosevelt in 1930 what was not a Titanic figure on the political landscape he was an attractive candidate with an attractive name but not very well known nationally he was able play large to win the nomination because he had the support of some very powerful political leaders including for example Huey Long of Louisiana he was also back play some of the major newspaper organization so in many ways he was the most logical candidate in 1932 in terms what's the Democratic Party World Herbert Hoover said during the Depression what American needed was a great poem and I think he didn't expected FDR might be the poem that's also probably true that any Democrat who was nominated in 1932 would have had a very good chance of defeating because to get to, we can buy the depression and certainly no violence occurred in Washington's result of those march on the other hand Franklin Delano Roosevelt to promise to take care of the problems of the United States do it he simply kept his mouth shut and let president who drown his own problem  you November to No One Supply Roosevelt wins the election by a landslide and the Democrats. both houses of Congress it is a broad and convincing Mandy the most romantic event in the awkward. Between November and and March 4th what Isabel took the oath of office was of course the assassination attempt on the president elect which Roosevelt of course escape the other dramatic. Of course was the the by the outgoing president to try and encourage a president Roosevelt to enter into a series of a green about how the economy would be managed after March 4th and Roosevelt I think white properly Marquis he was not the president and set those decisions should be made by mr. Hoover and that he would then make his own decisions after March 4th over with furious about this and criticize him play for not participating in the effort towards recovery but Roosevelt believed that any cooperation with Hoover during this period would but tie his hands when she president in March 1933 when he finally did become president however he moved very quickly to change both the tone and the substance of public policy scores the depression his inaugural address was a ringing promise of forceful action to deal with the economy with hints that he would use Warp hours if necessary hi, sorry face to clear possibility that will Benson trust me  the only thing we have to fear his first action was to issue an emergency order declaring bank holidays literally days to allow Banks to recoup perhaps get their hands on the other assets will move cash reserves from one branch to another to meet the demands of their appositives without locking your doors are closing down and his advisors see that the banking crisis was probably the most immediate emergency fix that you begin to establish some of the foundations for recovery and in a very  rapid. able to survey which of the banks were found and which of the banks are not and to innocence who are the American people that the banks that get open following the banking holiday for banks in which you could entrust your fun one of the first regulatory Act of the New Deal government in 1934 was passed legislation that would ban Banks venturing their cash reserves in the stock market in the ways that they had done leading up to the collection 29 so this is bad business practice Once Bitten shy won't allow Banks to do this again probably the most important piece of legislation in 1933 was a piece that Roosevelt himself opposed that was of course Federal Deposit Insurance he apparently leave that Federal Deposit Insurance would only encourage many of the bankers to be more a response more reckless in terms of their behavior this was also another kind of obligation for the federal government to undertake at a time when he was trying to cut the budget passed an act ironically to cut the federal budget to try to reassure bankers and financiers that the government was in response the mill course cutting the budget was not a depression fighting measuring and had little effect on the budget deficit is very quickly emergency home frequency to provide money to State and local police agencies so that more people could receive assistance during the time of my employment play most important thing that Roosevelt did in his first days and weeks in office was to inject an aura of confidence and optimism into Political breaking into public culture in to make his own personality something people could rally around is carrying out our plan The Unfinished nation is it two-part American history series for more information about this program in a company materials call +1-800-576-2988 or visit us online at w.org

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Hard Times and the 29 Crash

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