U.S. 1930s Economic Depression
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A U.S. 1930s Economic Depression is a U.S. economic depression that started in 1930 and lasted until the late 1930s.
- Context:
- It was a part of The Global 1930s Economic Depression.
- It helped to spawn the U.S. New Deal Programs.
- See: U.S. 2008+ Economic Recession.
References
2018b
- (Stiglitz, 2018) ⇒ Joseph Stiglitz. (2018). “Why all economists must learn lessons before next US downturn.” In: The Guardian, 2018-09-06
- QUOTE: ... as Larry Summers rightly points out, the term “secular stagnation” became popular as the second world war was drawing to a close. Alvin Hansen (and many others) worried that, without the stimulation provided by the war, the economy would return to recession or depression. There was, it seemed, a fundamental malady. But it didn’t happen. How did Hansen and others get it so wrong? Like some modern-day secular stagnation advocates, there were deep flaws in the underlying micro- and macroeconomic analysis – most importantly, in the analysis of the causes of the Great Depression itself.
As Bruce Greenwald and I (with our co-authors) have argued, high growth in agricultural productivity (combined with high global production) drove down crop prices – in some cases by 75% – in the first three years of the depression alone. Incomes in the country’s major economic sector plummeted by around half. The crisis in agriculture led to a decrease in demand for urban goods and thus to an economy-wide downturn.
- QUOTE: ... as Larry Summers rightly points out, the term “secular stagnation” became popular as the second world war was drawing to a close. Alvin Hansen (and many others) worried that, without the stimulation provided by the war, the economy would return to recession or depression. There was, it seemed, a fundamental malady. But it didn’t happen. How did Hansen and others get it so wrong? Like some modern-day secular stagnation advocates, there were deep flaws in the underlying micro- and macroeconomic analysis – most importantly, in the analysis of the causes of the Great Depression itself.
2017
- (McElvaine, 2017) ⇒ Robert S. McElvaine. (2017). “I’m a Depression historian. The GOP tax bill is straight out of 1929.” In: The Washington Post, November 30 at 9:17 AM
- QUOTE: ... the collapse of the economy in 1929. The crash followed a decade of Republican control of the federal government during which trickle-down policies, including massive tax cuts for the rich, produced the greatest concentration of income in the accounts of the richest 0.01 percent at any time between World War I and 2007 (when trickle-down economics, tax cuts for the hyper-rich, and deregulation again resulted in another economic collapse). Yet the plain fact that the trickle-down approach has never worked leaves Republicans unfazed. The GOP has been singing from the Market-is-God hymnal for well over a century, telling us that deregulation, tax cuts for the rich, and the concentration of ever more wealth in the bloated accounts of the richest people will result in prosperity for the rest of us.