The stock Market Crash of 1929
Imagine you live in the late 1920s. You hear about how everyone is making money in the stock market. So you decide to get in on the action. You make some money and buy cars, radios, refrigerators etc. Then suddenly its all gone, your living on the street, and all you can do is ask, "How did it happen?" This is what happend all across America. The stcok market crash of 1929 changed the outlook of American economics from a careless consumerism to a crippled economey. The 1920s seemed to be a time of great prosperity, but it was created in carelssness. It seemed that everyone was making money on the stock market. "There were perhaps millions of new stock owners. Icluding clerks, housewives, and truck drives" (Nardo: p29). It was not some rich guy on Wall Street buying and selling stocks; it was the average American. The number of stockholders grew. In the mid 1920s, about 10% of Americans were buying stock. (O'Meara: p30). The stock market appeared to be a way to get some good money for almost free. This appealed to a lot of people and thus the percentage of stockowners icreased. With all of this new money the middle class became wealthier. The middle calass began
Mass amounts of money vanished, people killed themselves, and many wandered the streets searching for food. Industires now only operated at 50% of what they did in early 1929 (Lewis: p11). People! were using the money they recieved through the stock market to pay for that. And so the economic bomb was droped. But the money was on paper in a bank account, it wasn't in cash. Industires makeless money, then workers get less, so they spend less, so industires cant sell their stuf!f, so they make less and so on. Around 4,000 banks went out of buisness in one day (O'meara: p30). In fact the layoffs gave a 30% unemployment rate in America (Fanslow: p3). "When the Wall (Street), Comes Tumbling Down". So in a way it was real money but in another way it isnt. This also had a big effect on banks. "People in Oakland sleptin sewer pipes and people in Chicago hunted for food in garbage cans" (Lewis: p11).
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