Talk:Depression of 1920–1921

Comments
I suspect the 1918 Pandemic also helped to cause the recession. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.40.195.36 (talk) 19:39, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

I think an appropriate response to the "End of Recession" bias would be to simply point out the alternative view point, the other interpretation: that it precipitated the Great Depression. Just like our 2001 recession and what has followed, insane and suicidal greed was facilitated when the big banks pressured the Feds to expand credit, lower interest rates, rich people got a tax cut, and a complete dearth of regulation and oversight allowed the classic house of cards market bubble to expand and eventually burst. Popz   —Preceding unsigned comment added by Popzealot (talk • contribs) 03:36, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Please keep. I'd like to see this article not merge with others, but expand to focus on this U.S. recession. —RVJ (talk) 07:03, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Can we get an opinion besides an Austrian wank on this article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.192.148.166 (talk) 17:21, 1 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I'm working on this. Have the Vernon piece and Zarnowitz book.  Would appreciate if anyone can get me Romer's paper on this. --JayHenry (talk) 03:15, 31 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I've put a NPOV tag for this issue until it is completed. Right now there is nothing but slant here.  Zathraszathras (talk)


 * While cites would be nice, both Austrian and Keynesian perspectives are represented.  Dhlii (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 06:21, 29 August 2009 (UTC).


 * I'm not sure what to do about the "Austrian" stuff. The claim that "Keynesian philosophy" ignores the episode (and I gather that Keynesian is used to here to mean "someone who is a Democrat" rather than Keynesian, as is a strangely common phenomenon right now) is false.  Friedman and Schwartz   There's quite a bit of literature on the recession.  The claim is particularly peculiar as, no matter what was meant by Keynesian, the recession is considered in much of the work of Christina Romer -- most famous as chairwoman of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, and second most famous as a leader of "Neo-Keynesian" economics.  Neither this, nor the spasms following 1945, actually create any sort of ideological dissonance that I can tell.  My preference would further be not to use a YouTube video as a source. --JayHenry (talk) 17:26, 19 September 2009 (UTC)


 * If more resources are needed, here is an article by Tom Woods on the topic, described elsewhere as a 'more formal' version of the YouTube video. I would keep the video as well, but the article seems to cover the topic sufficiently; there are also a few sources at the end. The easiest to find were the numbers on government debt and budget (pdf, Table 1-1, p.21), with the debt going slowly down and the budget quite a bit more during the early 20s. Didn't find the nomination speech, but found the inaugural speech, which called for similar measures ("We can reduce the abnormal expenditures, and we will. We can strike at war taxation, and we must." etc.). That of course doesn't prove anything as such, but at least hints that the route described by Mr. Woods was taken. ( @JayHenry: How is the research going? Would love to see some more on this. Don't have much time, but maybe could assist a little.) -- Pestergaines (talk) 00:23, 11 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I've been slowed up working on some other projects. Thanks for the link to the article from Woods.  I find it much easier to read and understand an article than listen to a speech - and it's also easier to skim afterwards to review!  The data on debt and spending will make a splendid graphic or table to illustrate.  I'd also like to find more about the history of the era, because I think that could be a good section.  I've also learned that this recession led pretty directly to minimum wage laws.  I always think it's interesting in articles about recessions to learn of what happened after. --JayHenry (talk) 03:50, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

The Austrian interpretation is unncessary. It is not relevant to inject opinion into an encyclopedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.21.243.81 (talk) 20:21, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Educated interpretation of a historical event is anything but "unnecessary opinion". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Plzenjoymyballs (talk • contribs) 20:12, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * "Educated interpretation" of a historic event that credits actions taken in 1921 for achieving results that happened in 1920 are so specious that they should be stripped away by a simple common sense filter. If the reader is interested in knowing the cause, it was a credit contraction during the middle of one of the biggest structural changes in history brought upon by an increase in interest rates from 4% to 7%.  The problem quickly reversed itself when rates were dropped again and the structural changes finished.  Unfortunately the misguided attempts by Harding to put more power and wealth in the hands of businesses started the ball rolling on the Great Depression, which was caused by massive shrinkage of the middle class and a large percentage of the nations wealth pooling in a very small number of hands.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.113.69.97 (talk) 09:51, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Rename?
In researching this topic it is generally called the "1920-21 Depression". I would propose changing the article to this name. In addition to this being my sense from reviewing the literature, I'll note: I don't believe this to be a controversial proposal, but wanted to post here for other people's input. --JayHenry (talk) 00:17, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
 * "1921 recession" = 6,130 Ghits
 * "1920-1921 recession" = 6,950 Ghits
 * "recession of 1920-1921" = 18,400 Ghits
 * "depression of 1920-1921" = 41,300 Ghits
 * "1920-21 depression" = 43,000 Ghits

I find the whole article fairly biased, beginning with the title. Only the modern Austrian School even refers to this period as a depression rather than a recession. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.82.26.29 (talk) 22:24, 10 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Agree with the anon IP there. Ghits is not a good measure, as libertarians and Austrians are over represented on the internet. I suggest google scholar instead. I highly recommend a move back to recession of 1920-1921. LK (talk) 11:06, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

According to classical economics, would this period be a depression or a recession? I believe there is a # of quarters that GDP declines to be called a recession or depression.Nly8nchz (talk) 00:47, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't agree that there is a rigorous definition to rely on. Depression is not a formal economic term, but rather simply a reference to a "very bad recession". It reminds me of a legal appeal to local community standards for definition as one supreme court judge remarked "I don't know how to define pornography, but I know it when I see it." Similarly, they say Recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.113.69.97 (talk) 10:03, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

How did the depression end?
At the end of this fine article, it states that Warren Harding ended it by instituting "laissez-faire" policies. According to your bio of Harding during this depression it states that he cut tax rates for all and reduced the national debt. I was told that what he did was reduce the highest tax bracket from 74% to 25% and reduced it to other income groups drastically as well. What were the exact figures? I was also told that he reduced the national debt by slashing the government expenditures by one half. Again, please verify or deny this information and supply exactly what he did. Thank you. Wroyce (talk) 22:00, 21 May 2010 (UTC)wroyce@hotmail.com


 * I heard the same thing about taxes being marked down by that much. I plan to do some research on this over the summer, but in the meantime if you find some resources that support that number please feel free to add it. :)  Ink Falls   04:05, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Woods does a good job of explaining his ideas of the 1920s depression in many of his video interviews. You can see these on Youtube. I have not read Daniel Kuehn's book, but the explanation on wikipedia does not seem to dispute the "depression" part of 1920. It also seems that the Daniel Kuehn's reply is more of an attack on Thomas Woods interpretation of the 1920s depression, rather than showing info on this article.Nly8nchz (talk) 00:50, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Why is the length of the Great Depression not 43 months?
The discussion switches between standards when comparing the expansions and contractions of the times. The Great Depression refers to an era of labor shift from farm to non-farm, exports to Europe collapsing and then recovering, and spans two contraction-expansion cycles: a 43 month contraction 29-33, 50 month expansion 33-37, 13 month contraction 37-38, and the first half of an 80 month expansion.

There were three NBER contractions between 1920 and 1929, and three contractions between 1910 and 1920, and the "economy" was struggling in both decades as the economy, or better, society switched from farm to urban labor, and "capital" became unglued from physical assets, and multiple cycles per decade for a few decades previously. That entire era is one or more periods of change that are equivalent to the Great Depression, but the NBER has nothing to do with defining them or the Great Depression. Mulp (talk) 19:08, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Keynesians vs Austrians

It seems like this depression has become a fight between Keynesians and Austrians. Austrians argue non-intervention and lower taxes helped end the depression, in contrast to the interventionist 1930's, 1970's and the current depression from 2007-20xx. Keynesians need to come with a thesis on the 1920 depression. So far, I can't see a credible Keynesian response, explaining the cause of the Depression and the reason for why it ended. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.27.52.45 (talk) 13:29, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Recommendation for edit
Recommend removing the entire paragraph of "Daniel Kuehn"'s research. Mr. Kuehn is not an accredited economist. He is a blogger. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.117.70.245 (talk) 22:02, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

"Deflationary expectations With the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913, the United States no longer maintained gold reserves backing each US dollar." This is incorrect, the Fed still operated under gold-type restrictions, not even considering public redemption. "Federal Reserve Banks were required to hold a gold reserve equal to at least 40 per cent of their issue of Federal Reserve notes and 35 per cent of their total deposit liabilities-namely, deposits of member banks" --A Reconsideration of Federal Reserve Policy during the 1920-1921 Depression, Author: Elmus R. Wicker, The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Jun., 1966), pp. 223-238, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2116229 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.173.141.44 (talk) 13:16, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

^ Really the whole section needs work, a ton of it is just bad economics. --Au Dragonknight (talk) 13:21, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

The NBER determines official timing of recessions, so they are the superior source on the length of the Great Depression. The 132 month claim is not supported by its footnote 1, which goes to the NBER chart that gives the correct length. The implication that 5 years of GDP growth between 8 and 12.9% took place in an allegedly contracting economy is not credible. https://usafacts.org/data/topics/economy/economic-indicators/gdp/annual-change-real-gdp/ 67.143.160.127 (talk) 14:24, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Bias against Thomas woods?
This article seems to end on a bias and needs to be revised to at least have the appearance of nuetrality. Thomas Woods is portrayed as being alone in his opinions, which is certainly not the case. The opposite view is then promoted with multiple opinions from others. A clear example of why Wikipedia articles are regarded as unreliable by educational institutions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.191.143.44 (talk) 19:56, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Not just the USA
My memory is that this sharp and little-remembered downturn certainly affected the UK as well, hence the intense labour unrest of the period (the threatened "Triple Alliance" (miners, dockers, rail) strike, etc); all this was against a backdrop of a UK economy overly dependent on the Victorian industries of coal, cotton, iron & shipbuilding which had been badly hit by WW1 and the drop in world trade volumes. I dare say it was one of the factors in Mussolini coming to power in 1922 as well, and in the French occupation of the Ruhr. Sadly I have long since mislaid all my old economic history textbooks (Floud & McCloskey, etc) from a generation ago. Perhaps some non-US perspective could be added.Paulturtle (talk) 23:41, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Agree with the above, this article currently only covers the USA depression. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 103.106.90.44 (talk) 14:50, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

I see some UK perspective has been added. This is good.Paulturtle (talk) 00:56, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

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Recession or depression
This article is confusing, with its use of both 'recession' and 'depression' -- without elucidation. Kdammers (talk) 18:11, 20 August 2019 (UTC)