The underlying cause of the Great Depression wasQuestion 17Answera.closures of banksb.immigrationc.high unemployment ratesd.excessive spending on credit
Question
The underlying cause of the Great Depression wasQuestion 17Answera.closures of banksb.immigrationc.high unemployment ratesd.excessive spending on credit
Solution
The underlying cause of the Great Depression was excessive spending on credit. Here's a step-by-step explanation:
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During the 1920s, there was a significant expansion of credit in the United States. This was facilitated by new financial products and a bullish stock market, which encouraged people to take on debt.
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Many people and businesses were therefore heavily leveraged, meaning they had borrowed money to invest in the stock market or expand their operations, expecting that future profits would enable them to repay their debts.
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However, in October 1929, the stock market crashed. This led to a sudden contraction in credit as banks and investors tried to reduce their exposure to risk.
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As a result, many people and businesses were unable to repay their debts. This led to a wave of bankruptcies and bank failures.
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The closures of banks and high unemployment rates were effects of the Great Depression, not underlying causes. Similarly, immigration
Similar Questions
How did the banking crisis exacerbate the economic conditions of the Great Depression?
All of these observations support the "spending hypothesis" explanation of the Great Depression EXCEPT that:the money supply fell by 25 percent from 1929 to 1933, during which time the official unemployment rate rose from 3 percent to 25 percent.the stock market crash of 1929 reduced real wealth.widespread bank failures occurred.investment in housing declined.
in a short paragraph Why did the Great Depression Happen
The Great Depression lasted from 1929-1945, and was the most prolonged and severe economic depression in American history. As the effects of the Depression spread across the US economy, millions of people lost their jobs. By 1930 there were 4.3 million unemployed; by 1931, 8 million; and in 1932 the number had risen to 12 million. By early 1933, almost 13 million were out of work and the unemployment rate stood at an astonishing 25%. Those who managed to retain their jobs often took pay cuts of a third or more. Unemployed Americans filled long breadlines, begged for food, or sold apples on street corners. A Chicago social worker wrote “We saw Want and Despair walking the streets, and our friends, sensible, thrifty families, reduced to poverty.” More than a third of the nation’s banks failed in the three years following 1929 because they had no cash. Long lines of desperate people outside banks hoping to retrieve their savings were common. Many ordinary citizens lost their life savings when banks failed. Thousands were evicted from their homes and lived on the streets, begging for food and work.Farmers were hit particularly hard by the crisis. Farmland across the Midwest, once seen as part of the American Dream during Westward Expansion, had been over-farmed to produce record numbers of crops. Lacking nutrients, the soil became dry, dusty, and unusable, and too many crops on the market meant prices drastically fell. On top of falling prices for crops, a devastating drought coupled with wind storms in Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas brought on a series of dust storms known as the Dust Bowl. In the South, sharecroppers—both white and black—endured crushing poverty and almost unimaginable degradation. African Americans suffered significantly higher levels of unemployment than whites due to pervasive racism. Farmers and their families became migrant workers, wandering the country and “riding the rails” (trains) in search of food, housing, and work, with many traveling west to California.The financial crisis was not limited to the United States. Countries in Europe and around the world experienced the depression. Hitler’s rise to power in Germany was fueled in part by the economic slowdown, and throughout the 1930s international tensions increased as the global economy declined.QUESTION 310 pointsDescribe one impact of the Great Depression that was especially interesting to you and explain why.
According to the text, most economists believe that the Great Depression is unlikely to recur. Which of these would NOT be a reason to believe this?The Federal Reserve is unlikely to let the money supply fall substantially.Greater efforts are made today to limit government expenditures during recessions.Widespread U.S. bank failures are less likely to occur.The U.S. federal budget has more automatic stabilizers than it did in the 1930s.
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