>>The Great Depression was primarily an economic and monetary event. There's no reason to seek causes in political events, other than those that impacted banking and investment. America was virtually an economy unto itself at the time. International trade accounted for only 5% of its GNP. If America sneezed the rest of the world caught cold. But not vice versa.<<
Why did the US cooperate with Great Britain in its effort to keep the exchange rate for the pound at the pre-WWI level? Was that an economic event? A monetary event?
US businesses loaned a lot of money to businesses in other countries for the purpose of financing exports - essentially selling their goods on time, and on spec. At the same time the US government erected substantial trade barriers to foreign countries selling their goods to the US. How could the loans be repaid?
The US was, during the 1920's, a net exporter, not importer. I can't put my finger on the data but my recollection is that 25% of US finished goods were exported.
>>The Ukraine famine was a horror to Ukrainians, but it didn't have much impact outside of the USSR. Ethiopia was a backwater. Hitler rose to power after the Depression was already well under way. Mao didn't take power until after WWII. Same for Ghandi. Mussolini's Italy couldn't have pulled the world into Depression even if he'd made all the trains run behind schedule. Its economy was too small.<<
Russia further depressed world wheat prices by dumping wheat. The Depression began in agriculture in the mid-1920's. Hitler's party got 18% of the popular vote in 1930.
I can't believe you don't consider communism to be an economic force. As a libertarian, I sort of lump socialism and communism into the same category. I don't like to lump trade unionism into it because I don't think the association is necessary, but in fact there was quite a bit of philosophical overlap.
>>Followed by 10 years of prosperity that mysteriously ended.<<
No shit. Nobody who lived through it had an explanation.
1. My working hypothesis is that the people who knew the answer didn't want to talk about it, and never did. That means they probably either worked for a government or a bank. No one else has that tight control over information.
2. Ayn Rand had a good hypothesis in "Atlas Shrugged."
3. There's always the possibility that we are all lab rats in a cosmic cage and "They" forgot to put money in the money dish.
"The bigger the boom, the bigger the bust" is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The only way we "know" we were in a boom is if there is a bust. |
