1930s AD

0 Comments | Insight on the News, April 16, 2001 | by Jerry Askeroth

Think about that special time in America's history called the Great Depression. Three generations of historians, economists and sociologists have searched for the true cause of those hard times. They found different answers. Which one do you believe?

1.) The stock market crashed in 1929, and everything tumbled down. Amateurs had entered the market on a large scale, invested without investigating and bought into losing ventures. Margin-buying got out of hand. The plummeting profits and stock prices meant lost mortgages, sales and jobs.

2.) Drought: Nature's rain gods turned their backs on America's breadbasket region. It just wouldn't rain. Crops failed. Foreclosures, bankruptcies and unemployment followed. Many banks went broke, and the Depression spread nationwide. Millions fled to California to be depressed in the sun and surf.

3.) Worldwide depression finally hit the United States after having spared us for years. Our prosperity could not last indefinitely when international trade was in trouble.

4.) The Federal Reserve reduced the dollars in circulation. This caused contraction in all phases of business. People couldn't pay debts or purchase goods without money. The Fed should have increased the money supply to stimulate the economy, but it did just the opposite. It paralyzed business transactions.

5.) Hidden gold was lost under the dust storms. Gold coins and bullion were popular savings commodities. People buried gold in their back yards (midnight gardening). The dust bowl swirled on the plains for 10 years. It was so steady and intense that, when the savers went to dig up their gold, they couldn't find it. As a result, millions of hardworking Americans became very depressed.

6.) It was in the stars: As Pisces was unleashed by Jupiter moving into the House of Cards, extreme sunspot activity occurred. How zodiac forces could compel an economic collapse, heaven only knows -- but they did.

7.) Numerology: When the year numbered 1929 arrived, our number was up. That put us in the three position, stuck behind the eight ball for a dozen years. The days of individuals and nations are numbered, and there's no escaping the consequences. Numero uno economies can become zeros overnight. The Great Depression registered a minus eight.

8.) Human nature can't stand prosperity. Humans can take only so much of the good times. One has to take a walk in the rain just to see what it's like. The American people unconsciously willed the Depression.

9.) Prohibition created a climate of cautious conservatism. Without a drop to drink, people were not daring or creative. Sober minds are content and do nothing for expanding markets. A belt or two is good for business. Both the people and the economy were dried up and depressed by Prohibition.

10.) Adolf Hitler was released from prison with his book Mein Kampf (German for "have a Great Depression"). Americans were so shocked by reading Hitler's plans that they couldn't go to work. They told others of their fears, even though all they had to fear was fear itself. It was contagious and the snowball started rolling downhill to disaster.

11.) Mae West invited so many men to come up and see her sometime that no one got anything done. Millions of men were seduced, lost time on the job and failed to produce. They were fired from their jobs, creating mass unemployment. The entire economy fell because of that wicked woman.

12.) Herbert Hoover was president when it happened. He was an admitted Republican. He did something or other to start the Depression and refused to stop it. If he had stayed in the White House, we would still have millions -- no, trillions -- of unemployed workers in soup lines.

13.) Karmic debt had to be paid. The Roaring Twenties overdid it with materialism, debauchery and frivolity. ?he Universe tolerates excesses just so long, and then it turns out the lights: The party's over. Cause and effect; sow and reap.

14.) A shortage of lawyers made commerce almost impossible because only attorneys can comprehend the Constitution with all its clauses and stuff. Legal confusion was rampant. It ruined the economy. We don't have to worry about a depression today because every third person is a lawyer.

15.) The battle of the sexes: Demand (female) and supply (male) were out of sync. When Supply was not there to meet Demand, she left. Then Supply finally tried to deliver, but Demand was nowhere to be found. They remained separated until reunited by FDR, WPA, CCC, NRA, TVA, PWA, SEC, AAA, FHA, SSA, WWII, etc.

Those are the causes of the Great Depression as put forth by the best and the brightest. Did you pick one? Well, you're wrong.

16. Business cycles happen.

Jerry Askeroth writes free-lance humor on political economy and history from Las Vegas.