Mike-and-Will,
1. If the Austrians don't think government should issue, maintain and control currency, who should? And don't say gold, unless you mean bullion.
2. Although the U.S. stock market did shoot up parabolically, particularly in 1928, there was no inflation in the U.S because there was actually tremendous DEFLATION. Actually regression to the mean, after the inflation spike caused by WWI. And, imho, productivity increases caused by broad-based penetration of electricity and gas utilities into American life, and automobiles, availability of appliances, telephones, you name it, these things were available before but not until the 1920's were they cheap enough for ordinary people and it changed everything.
3. I believe that the crash of 1929 did not cause the Great Depression, which is what people really fear. Only 1.5% of Americans owned stock at the height of the mania. It crashed because it really was a speculative bubble. The Great Depression was caused in part by restrictive fiscal policies, including an ill-advised attempt to return to the gold standard, due to romantic but uneducated views held by Winston Churchill, and acceded to by U.S.; by the draconian levy on Germany after WWI; by bad weather; many more, but I gotta go get my kid, he's at a math competition. Bye!
CobaltBlue |
