The great depression what ended it

The Great Depression began in October of and ended in December of The Gret Depression ended in the early months of

It began on October 24,and was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States. Much of the stock market crash can be attributed to exuberance and false expectations.

In the years leading up tothe rising stock market prices had created vast sums of wealth for those invested, in turn encouraging borrowing to further buy more stock.

However, on October 24 Black Thursdayshare prices began to fall and panic selling caused prices to fall sharply. After the stock market crash and the bank closures, people were afraid of losing more money. Because of their fears of further economic challenge, individuals from all classes stopped purchasing and consuming.

Thousands of individual investors who believed they could get rich by investing on margin lost everything they had. The stock market crash severely impacted the American economy.

Banking failures[ edit ] A large contribution to the recession was the closure and suspension of thousands of banks across the country. Financial institutions failed for several reasons, including unregulated lending procedures, confidence in the Gold standardconsumer confidence in future economics, and agricultural defaults on outstanding loans.

With these compounding issues the banking system struggled to keep up with the public's increasing demand for cash withdrawals. This overall decreased the money supply and forced the banks to result to short sale real estate and liquidation of existing loans.

In November the first major banking crisis began with over banks closing their doors by January By October over banks were suspended with the highest suspension rate recorded in the St. Louis Federal Reserve District, with 2 out of every 5 banks suspended.

These losses came directly from everyday individuals' savings, investments and bank accounts. As a result, GDP fell from the high seven-hundreds in to the low to mid six-hundreds in before seeing any recovery for the first time in nearly 4 years.

The Federal Reserve Act could not effectively tackle the banking crisis as state bank and trust companies were not compelled to be a member, paper eligible discount member banks heavily restricted access to the Federal Reserve, power between the twelve Federal Reserve banks was decentralized and federal level leadership was ineffective, inexperienced, and weak.

Unregulated growth[ edit ] Throughout the early s banking regulations were extremely lax if not non-existent. The Currency Act of lowered the required capital of investors from 50, to 25, to create a national bank.

As a result of this change nearly two thirds of the banks formed over the next ten years were quite small, averaging just above the 25, in required capital.

Throughout the corn and cotton belts real estate increases drove the demand for more local funding to continue to supply rising agricultural economics.

The rural banking structures would supply the needed capital to meet the farm commodity markethowever, this came with a price of reliability and low risk lending. Economic growth was promising from to with an average of 6 percent growth in [GDP]. In particular the participation in World War I drove a booming agricultural market that drove optimism at the consumer and lending level which, in turn, resulted in a more lax approach in the lending process.

Overbanked conditions existed which pressured struggling banks to increase their services specifically to the agricultural customers without any additional regulatory oversight or qualifications. This dilemma introduced several high risk and marginal business returns to the banking market.

Banking profitability and loan standards begin to deteriorate as early as as a result. Approaching dust storm near Stratford, Texas. Crop failures beginning in began to impact this poorly regulated system, the expansion areas of corn and cotton suffered the largest due to the dust bowl era resulting in real estate value reductions.

In addition, the year was the peak for banking expansion with roughly 31, banks in activity, however, with the failures at the agricultural level banks would close between marking the largest banking system failure on record.

Regulatory questions began to hit the debating table around banking qualifications as a result; discussions would continue into the [Great Depression] as not only were banks failing but some would disappear altogether with no rhyme or reason.

Contagion[ edit ] With a lack of consumer confidence in the economic direction given by the federal government panic started to spread across the country shortly after the Wall Street Crash of As a result, the American shareholders with the majority of the gold reserves began to grow wary of the value of gold in the near future.

The market continued to suffer due to these reactions, and in result caused several of the everyday individuals to speculate on the economy in the coming months.

Rumors of market stability and banking conditions began to spread, consumer confidence continued to drop and panic began to set in. Contagion spread like wild fire pushing Americans all over the country to withdraw their deposits en masse. This idea would continue from causing the greatest financial crisis ever seen at the banking level pushing the economic recovery efforts further from resolution.

An increase in the currency-deposit ratio and a money stock determinant forced money stock to fall and income to decline. This panic-induced banking failure took a mild recession to a major recession.

However, it is evident that the banking system suffered massive reductions across the country due to the lack of consumer confidence. As withdraw requests would exceed cash availability banks began conducting steed discount sales such as fire sales and short sales.In sum, it wasn’t government spending, but the shrinkage of government, that finally ended the Great Depression.

That’s what should be, but isn’t, in every history book. - Stephen Moore is. Only when the federal government imposed rationing, recruited 6 million defense workers (including women and African Americans), drafted 6 million soldiers, and ran massive deficits to fight World War II did the Great Depression finally end.

The Great Depression of devastated the U.S. economy. Half of all banks failed. Unemployment rose to 25 percent and homelessness increased.

Housing prices plummeted 30 percent, international trade collapsed by 60 percent, and prices fell 10 percent. It took 25 years for the stock market to. Nov 30,  · The Great Depression Was Ended by the End of World War II, Not the Start of It Peter Ferrara Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

Nov 30,  · A common fallacy is that the Great Depression was ended by the explosive spending of World War II. But World War II actually institutionalized the sharp decline in the standard of living caused by the Depression. What finally ended the Great Depression? That question may be the most important in economic history.

If we can answer it, we can better grasp what perpetuates economic stagnation and what cures it. The Great Depression was the worst economic crisis in U.S.

history. From to unemployment was always in double digits.