Crash of '29

Now I know you weren’t there. Ok, maybe a few of you were, but even if you were, you were probably too young to remember much of what it was really like. Though, I think most of us got a taste of what it was like with the current recession we are recovering from. Not very pleasant, that’s for sure. What I’m referring to is the big Stock Market Crash of 1929.

In itself, it was a disaster. But more importantly, it set off other things that were even worse. You might even remember reading accounts of stockbrokers and investors being so despondent over the collapse of the market, that some jumped from high rises, committing suicide.

Entire companies were ruined and many thousands of people lost their life savings. And you probably also know that several things happened because of the crash, and I’m betting at least one thing that you didn’t know.

The great depression followed, of course. Now that’s when it hit the common man and woman pretty hard. Companies went out of business, so there went the jobs. There too went the opportunity for business to recover and get back on their feet. And when American business is down, much of the world suffers too. Even back then.

And you probably also remember the stories and pictures of the bread lines. People lined up for blocks in the cities just to get a bit of food for the day. Unemployment lines nearly a mile long. Runs were made on banks and shanty towns all over the country.

President Hoover got most of the blame, but it wasn’t any more his fault than anyone else’s, but he was the President and when recovery was slow in coming, he got the blame alright. Actually it cost him re-election.

FDR swept into office on the tails of that disaster. It was a huge victory for FDR....‘A chicken in every pot’ was Hoover’s campaign slogan, and I guess that didn’t convince anyone, huh?! Except for one more thing that you probably didn’t know. Another country was having exactly the same problems at the exact same time as we were. And it was caused by the exact same reason.

You see, that country had been through a war about a decade earlier and was devastated. They were in debt to the tune of $6 billion and were required to pay over $600 million a year in war debts. And guess where the vast majority of that money came from? Yep, the good Ol’ U.S. of A.

But when the market crash of 29 threw us into a depression, that country went right along with us. We were in such bad shape ourselves, we hardly noticed anyone else. Not that we could have done anything about it. But it caused some real problems in their country too.

And a new leader emerged. One also bent on recovering their economy, but in a different manner. No, this leader saw recovery opportunities in the takeover of other countries and living off their profits. And that’s exactly what he did. I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s true.
It’s a Little Known Fact that our stock market crash of 1929 set off the chain of events that prevented Germany from paying its World War I debts; plunging that country into a depression and causing the rise of....Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich.