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The Great Depression

The Great Depression was a huge economic downfall in North America and involved many other industrialized countries of the world.   The Depression began in 1929 and lasted for about ten years.   Millions of people lost their jobs along with many businesses going bankrupt.   The common misconception of the Great Depression is people think that the stock market crash was the main cause for it.   There were many causes for the Depression; unequal distribution of money during the 1920's was the main cause of the Depression.   This unequal distribution happened on many different classes of people.   The imbalance of money is what created such an unstable economy.   The stock market was doing much worse than people thought during this period.   This lead to the biggest stock market crash in our history.   The misdistribution of wealth and the stock market crash caused the economy to plummet (Modern).
The stock market was bigger than ever in the 1920's.   Prices reached levels that people never dreamed of.   At one point when the market was roaring in September 1929 forty percent of stock market values were pure air.   This meant that investors thought that the stock market would go up because it had been going up.   By 1928 and 1929 the Federal Reserve was worried about the high level that the stock market had reached (Galbraith 116).   The Federal Reserve feared that the stock market might burst suddenly.   If this did happen investment might fall, parts of the stock market might not be able to pay back debts, and even worse recession might result (Galbraith 118).   The Federal Reserve in 1928 tried to make borrowing money for stock speculation more difficult and very costly by raising interest rates.   All of the options that the Reserve tried had unfavorable risks associated with them.   Many economists believed that the Federal Reserve was responsible for the recession.   The stock market did crash on October 29 1929.   The Federal Reserve tried to do to much to stop the recession and...