Friday, May 11, 2012

Talk of Great Depression not happy

The Great Depression is not a happy memory for those who lived through it.  A poster on Tiger Droppings  asked to hear from anyone who might remember hearing their grandparents relate what they experienced during this time.  His remarks proved he has no historical  knowledge of that time when he said he knew Hoover caused the depression. He needs to read a few books and become a little bit  better informed.  No one man, night even the world's most famous engineer of the time who was also known as the "Great Humanitarian:" could throw the world into a depression and inflation.

Actually, a depression followed almost immediately after the end of the first World War but when there was no response with government programs, it was over with in about two years.  However, the effects of the war and the world-wide flu epidemic pushed  Europe and the United States into a depression.  Inflation was so rampart in Eastern Europe that it took a wheel barrow load of money to buy a loaf of bread.

Unemployment in the US was as high as 30 per cent and at that time most families had only one  earner. Effects were different for people in cities and those on farms.  I had  a friend whose family lived in New York and was forced to get their food from garbage cans. His younger sister starved to death.

We (our family) would have avoided much of the suffering from the depression had not the bank closed, taking all the money that the crops had brought in that year.  Money was so scarce that at times I could not get a penny to buy a pencil. You  may remember my story of needing a nickel for a coping saw.

Many new government agencies were formed; some seemed to help for a time, but they  eventually harmed efforts of the private sector to create job, and the depression got worse every year until World War II put people to work.

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