Great Depression
As a result of the costs of World War One, industrial businessgenerally became exceptionally more profitable in America based on the U.S.entry into the war and the concurrent increased demands on basic resourcesand industrial goods. Incentives offered by the government convinced mostU.S. business to reinvest profits in their companies in a fashion that mademake the more efficient and thereby more profitable. This increase ininvestment capital was also met by a general great leapt forward in thetype of industrial machinery available as well, which was continuing tomake the processing and creation of industrial goods more efficient andmore profitable. The recent inclusion of other more abstract techniqueslike the assembly line created by Henry Ford also enabled
As a result of thisexperience, people suddenly became exceptionally unwilling to invest andthe flow of capital nearly stopped. Although some of this material gain did "trickledown" and increase prosperity all around, it was mostly given to the rich,who continued their investment and speculation, particularly in the stockmarket. The result ofspeculation that was unmatched by actually concrete marks of prosperitylead to the famous stock market crash of 1929 in which a series of eventsbegan that eventually spiraled out of control into the Great Depressionitself. Indeed, as aresult of this crash, many fortunes were lost within hours and importantindustrialists were suddenly and unexpectedly ruined. The amount of speculation in the stock market wasgenerally extremely high and worked on the assumption that the ridiculouseconomic boom of the early twenties would be indefinitely sustainable,which, as well know now, it was not in any fashion. As a result of overspeculation, stock market prices had becomeartificially high and when the market realized this and began to correctitself, speculators effectively panicked and began selling in droves suchthat the already serious correction was then artificially worse and stocksthat only a few weeks before had been exceptionally well-off were now quiteliterally not worth the paper that they were written on. an increase ingeneral efficiency and productivity. " Indeed, however, this is a bit of amisnomer, in that the majority of the wealth accrued to a relatively smallpercentage of the population such that the divide between rich and poorincreased exponentially. As a result of increasing lack ofconfidence in the economy spending decreased to almost nothing and themarket was thrown into a terrible depression. With the end of World War One and thereturn of cheap manual labor in droves as a result of the soldiers who werenow released from the military, industrial production and profitabilityincreased even more dramatically after the war and continued through mostof the 1920s in a fashion that greatly increased the wealth of the nation,resulting in the often showy ostentatious nature of the decade that leantit the name of the "roaring twenties. Indeed, it is in the stock market that the woes of the GreatDepression began. Thus, the runaway success of industrialism in the 1920s was in manyways the very force that caused the Great Depression to occur in the 1930s.
Common topics in this essay:
World War,
Henry Ford,
stock market,
,
world war,
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