In 1929, experts started to sell their shares heavily before the values fell even further. Eventually, everyone wanted to sell their shares but nobody was buying. This led to complete collapse of prices and thousands of investors lost millions of dollars. Tariffs – Due to America putting Fordney McCumber Tariffs on European goods, Europe responded by also putting tariffs on American goods so US business men found it hard to sell goods to European
p. Common Knowledge (Couldn't find a specific page, so the page is the chapter? xD) Following the end of WWI the U.S economy was turning around as the government turned laissez-faire in order for business to grow. As they grew they hired, as this happened people went out and purchased items (including new technologies that increased leisure time). As the items were purchased business grew even more and people invested in the stock market. This would soon prove disastrous as the stock market crashed, leading into the great depression.
In addition the interest on the debt alone was £9 million per year. All of this made it clear to Pitt that something had to happen to try to escape from the mess the government was in. In the 18th century there was a serious problem with people smuggling goods such as tea and tobacco into the country. This was to avoid the duty tax on products, which gave them a huge profit margin. This profit margin made the risk worth taking for many, resulting in the government losing money due to be not paying duty tax.
John majors government came into office after the downfall of Margret Thatcher, which ultimately created divisions within the party. Not only did the party suffer from the internal conflict but also faced the problems of the recession after the ‘Lawson boom’. In order to stabilise the economy he joined the ERM getting a good deal but ultimately resulting in ‘black Wednesday’ causing Major to raise interest rates to 15%. This was political suicide and he soon lost the support of the press we had once relied so much on to get re-elected in 1992. The housing market also plummeted leading to negative equity, which the majority of the working class could not afford resulting in the repossession of their houses combined with the drastic increase in unemployment Britain was in a mess.
The reason for the people selling all of their stocks at the some time is too complex to explain in the introduction. When they did sell, the buyers would only buy at an extremely low price. Because of this imaginary price drop, the stocks used as collateral for loans were now worthless (in the eyes of the people and the bank owners) and so they demanded real money. The people had plenty of this, but all of it was in stocks...that were rapidly dropping in value because of some ignorant, greedy and bewildered stockholders were buying their stocks for low prices. As soon as everyone found out (thought) the stocks were worth much less, everyone sold and additional cash was needed to pay off all of their debts.
Describe the effects of hyperinflation on Germany in 1923. (9) The Weimar government was short of money after the First World War and so began to print more and more banknotes. The sudden flood of paper money into the economy, on top of the general strike - which meant that no goods were manufactured, so there was more money, chasing fewer goods - combined with a weak economy ruined by the war, all resulted in hyperinflation. Prices ran out of control, for example, a loaf of bread, which cost 250 marks in January 1923 had risen to 200,000 million marks in November 1923. German's currency became worthless.
Only six months after Hoover took office, the economy collapsed and the Great Depression began. Many factors caused and contributed to the Great Depression of 1929. One factor would be the overproductions of many goods in the 1920s led to worker layoffs Another factor was that easy credit led to people spending more than they had, and it led to a rapid inflation that eventually caused people to stop buying. The Federal Reserve Bank, created in 1913, did a poor job which also led to the great depression. It did not monitor interest rates to help regulate the economy when overproduction and inflation had started to cause unemployment in 1928-29 and the economy seemed likely headed toward collapse.
This means that the prices for stock were too high, far higher than they were really worth, then they fell drastically. People who had borrowed money to buy high-priced stocks (intending to sell the stocks at a profit and repay lenders), went bankrupt. That’s further expounding on what I said about buying on margin. Black Tuesday also marks the beginning of the great depression (Regan3). Living conditions during this time were unsanitary and horrible.
Because of the large amounts of profit they were making, they ended up buying more land and equipment on credit. However, when the war ended, the economy was disastrous once again, with farmers having to default onto this credit as a result of a lower amount of profit they were making. To fix these economic problems, Harding implemented a number of economic policies. The Secretary of the Treasury, Andrew Mellon, passed the Fordney-McCumber Tariff Act was passed, which allowed Harding to raise any tariff by 50%. The act also emplaced the Tariff of 1922.
In addition to that, the stock market crashed because of a weak-banking system and because of the fact that the Government allowed businesses to make decisions even if it hurt everyone else. If people did not take advantage of loans, then the Great Depression would have never happened