The main cause for both the crash of 1929 and the Great Depression was the bad infrastructure of the American economy. Although many people believe that the cause of the Great Depression was the Stock Market Crash of 1929, the true cause was the underlying problems in the economy hidden from the public.
Reply
Andrew Murphy
11/2/2009 10:37:42 am
I think that the great depression happened because of the big stock market crash.
Reply
Andrew Bates
11/3/2009 11:01:16 am
I am going to have to disagree with you Andrew Murphy. Although the two events occurred during the same year, a crash in the stock market, even one of this magnitude, is not enough to send a country such as the United States into a downward spiral that ends in a depression that effects the entire world. The Stock Market crash might have been one of the contributing factors of starting the Great Depression it was not the only factor. Other things that could have helped the Great Depression to happen and when it happened to effect countries all over the world, were the fact that people were taking out loans that they could not pay back, and Japan buying unpaid loans from the American banks so they could change the American dollars used to pay the loans back into Japanese yen and make a large profit. Another contributing factor might have been that President Hoover did not want to make the American government to involved in the market, because the market had fixed itself before and if he used tax dollars to fix the market but it fixed itself again and ended up being a waste of tax payers money he would have been strongly disliked. I think it was his fear of letting the American people down by wasting their money that drove him to think the market would fix it self.
Reply
Cimone
11/9/2009 04:36:52 am
Bank failure, I believe, was a big problem and one of the catalysts to the Great Depression. During the 1930s 9000 banks failed and people's deposits were uninsured.Surviving banks, unsure of the economic situation and concerned for their own survival, stopped being as willing to approve new loans.
Reply
Ruben
11/22/2009 05:37:32 am
Ths Crash of 1929 happened because of many reasons. Maybe in that time people were optomistic about thier mone, thinking they could just buy and buy. This was the downfall. Peopel would buy and buy, and not be able to pay for them. Houses were took back, people were in debt,and the stock market was crashing. This and the dust bowl ( a huge drought that lasted for many months) could have been the cause of the great depression. One failure lead to another. The Great Depression was going to happen either way. We could not control the drought, but i believe that it would have gone alot better if the Crash of 1929 did not happen. Everything that happened was bad luck in my opinion.
