What were the three main causes for the great depression in the 30's?

Question

details pleasse and sites =) thanks a bunch!

Answer 1

One of the largest problems was the rise of industrialism, both on and off the farm. Farm machinery drove the extra workers no longer needed off of the farms and into city factories. The increasing mechanization of the factories forced them out of work there as well. The classical economic explanation of increasing production meaning more shared wealth did not hold. Suddenly a person producing as much as ten people before found his wages cut to less than a quarter of his previous earnings. What else should be expected, there were now nine people out of work willing to take his job for even less money. Corporate profits soared and that led to massive stock speculation. The problem was that the money quit going around. Money is just a token for trade after all, and is not in and of itself wealth. The stores were full of goods that nobody could afford because they had no way to earn the money to buy it. Farmers could not sell crops, or fishermen sell their catch. You hear economist talk about this as overproduction, that is not right. The problem was underpaying. People wanted and needed those goods. But the money had all Ended up in the banks. As the Banks started to forclose that made things even worse economicaly because every failed loan reduced the money supply.
The depression was world wide and was begun in the twenties. The 1929 Stock market crash was just a symptom of the underlying problems.

No references to offer but the works of Jeremy Rifkin are a good read.

Answer 2

Shannon gives a good answer, but US centric. The worst economic depression didn't spread from the US, it spread TO the US. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the economy of the world was already completely interdependent. The Treaty of Versailles imposed such harsh penalties for Germany that one of the world's major industrial powers was pushed into crushing poverty. It took a decade or so for the ripple effect to cause repercussions, but ultimately, Germany dragged the rest of the world into an economic depression, too. In the U.S. there were the additional two factors of an unregulated stock market, where speculation was rampant and too many people were buying stock on margin, which lead to the stocks being values being over inflated with nothing to back them up; and a terrible drought in the Midwest that dried up some of our richest farmland into a giant dust bowl. So...Three main causes

Treaty of Versailles
Stock Market Crash
Dust Bowl Drought.

Answer 3

The Great Depression was the worst economic slump ever in U.S. history, and one which spread to virtually all of the industrialized world. The depression began in late 1929 and lasted for about a decade. Many factors played a role in bringing about the depression; however, the main cause for the Great Depression was the combination of the greatly unequal distribution of wealth throughout the 1920's, and the extensive stock market speculation that took place during the latter part that same decade. The maldistribution of wealth in the 1920's existed on many levels. Money was distributed disparately between the rich and the middle-class, between industry and agriculture within the United States, and between the U.S. and Europe. This imbalance of wealth created an unstable economy. The excessive speculation in the late 1920's kept the stock market artificially high, but eventually lead to large market crashes. These market crashes, combined with the maldistribution of wealth, caused the American economy to capsize.

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/6854/greatdep.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_the_Great_Depression
http://www.amatecon.com/gd/gdcandc.html
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/depression/about.htm

Answer 4

Power the same way they plunged us into one again, a group of people who want absolute power and will stop at nothing including sabotage, throwing in with the enemies like 9/11.
Greed for power and wealth and freedom of their choice meaning controlling us and breaking the backs of the gross population other than at that time the top 400 families and is history 7 out of 10 of those families that survived the great depression were in on it (Hunts, General Foods, Ford, etc.)
Last but not least the population panic and made a run on the banks, (meaning they ran into their bank and demanded payment in cash for all their accounts leaving banks bankrupt unable to pay bills so that the Shadow Government that rules over us now could buy up the all those banks and throw you off your land and start over with a whip and chain.) So when did we get set free???? we are slaves now and then and forever, Where is Moses man?

Answer 5

My speculation. No work, no jobs to thousands + of unemployed people.

Stock market crashed, people put all cash into it and lost it.

I don't think the FDIC was around back then to support bank desposits.

Answer 6

Greed, greed, greed