ipl-logo

What Caused The Great Depression Essay

431 Words2 Pages

The Great Depression and its Causes

Some of the biggest causes for The Great Depression were The Stock Market Crash of ’29, Roosevelt’s New Deal, and lastly how bank problems and ‘self-induced’ panic furthered the problem. While these are big causes of The Great Depression, they are not all of them. When researching The Great Depression, one must look beyond the smokescreen of lies.

Looking into the first and possibly single biggest cause of The Great Depression, and that is the Stock Market Crash of 1929. On October 28th and 29th of 1929, over 16 million shares were exchanged, and over these two days the Dow Jones lost a total of 381 points (“Stock Market Crash Of 1929”). At this point, everyday citizens were losing money. From October 14 to October 29, the Stock Market went down 12% and lost $14 Billion (Kelly). Some speculate that because people were buying large amounts of stocks without seeing how much they were worth that they brought the market down almost by themselves. …show more content…

Roosevelt’s “New Deal.” Among other things, this New Deal allowed the US Government to destroy farmland! This was justified by saying, it would help the economy, but as seen it did not. Additionally, this deal was a sharp rise in Federal Taxes. “New Deal programs were financed by tripling federal taxes from $1.6 billion in 1933 to $5.3 billion in 1940” (Powell). In 1933 the Federal Tax Income was $1.6 Billion and in 1940 the Federal Tax Income had spiked to $5.3 Billion (Powell). This sharp increase in taxes was not good for the poor population in

More about What Caused The Great Depression Essay

Open Document