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The Great Depression After reading the article on The Great Depression, I came to realize that the economy is a dynamic condition. The economic state of the world can be manipulated and destabilized due to a couple of factors. Through this article, I was able to understand various aspects of economic from the historical point of view. The situation makes me change my thinking on how I approach my thinking capacity in terms of economic evaluation. This essay will evaluate different things that I realized after reading the article, how it has changed my thinking, what the article is about, how it relates to my culture, and how it affects me. The Great Depression is a phenomenon that took place between the 1920s and 1930s. This time of poverty and despair was caused by crashes in the stock market in America. The phenomenon took millions of employees from work. The period marked the start of government and society involvement in the nation's economy. After enjoying a decade of optimism and prosperity, the United States was now in despair again (Romer, 2010). The day when the event happened is called Black Tuesday as it is the day that the stock market crashed. During this period, I realize that the stock market prices crashed up to a point that there was no more hope of rising again (Romer, 2010). During the period, people could try hard to sell their stocks but no one was interested in purchasing them. The stock market had proven to be the route to wealth, but now it turned to be a path to bankruptcy. From the reading, I realize that The Great Depression was not a common event. Some factors contributed to this scenario. First, it was due to the failure of many American Banks. It is said that all markets and even the banks felt the impact caused by the stock market destabilization. More than 700 banks collapsed during this period of the depression. According to research, more than 3000 banks collapsed in 1930 (Roosevelt, 2016). The society was in shock as many business investors and individuals lost a lot of finance. Many people started to withdraw their money from various banks with fear that banks will close down. The other cause is purchasing reduction. As an additional burden, to invest during this period was worthless, savings diminished; there was a demand for any product in any market as savings had greatly diminished (Carter, 2014). Due to the lack of consumer demand, there was a situation of overproduction as people were not able to do any purchases; the companies were forced to stop more products. Indirectly it created unemployment as factories laid off most of the employees due to lack of funds to manage them. Economic policies affected the situation. The government had to act and react during this period. The Great Depression made the Congress in 1930 to pass the Tariff Act that regulated foreign competitors in America (Romer, 2010). The Act imposed high taxes on any imported goods, it led to a worse situation as companies could not produce as well as imported goods were not coming in due to high tariffs. The situation worsened until Franklin Roosevelt and Congress passed a new law that was to reduce taxes on imported goods (Roosevelt, 2016). Lastly, natural calamities contributed to this depression. American had been suffering from droughts and poor farming practices that resulted in huge losses among individuals (Romer, 2010). The Great Depression makes me understand the business culture differently. From what this article stipulates, The Great Depression had a global impact in economic development. However, the German banking system was indeed the one to blame for the phenomenon (Carter, 2014). It caused a monumental effect on the world’s economy. This system could not have turned into a great depression but a small economic challenge. President Hoover said that European political leaders had no courage to address serious issues and instead spent huge sums of money firearms and other programs that were to deal with unemployment, but the contrary happened (Carter, 2014). There was unbalanced budgetary and inflation in the country. The Germans also blamed the Versailles treaty as it hard harsh policies, which required them to pay huge amounts as the reparation. What I can learn also is that in case there is an economic rundown in a particular nation, the other nations also are affected because of the international trade imbalance that results from the economic crash. I am compelled to think differently about our leaders and how they should control the economy to avoid such situations of stock market shutting. The Great Depression led to poor living standards in many nations. People suffered a lot. First, the levels of unemployment shoot up. Many employees lost their jobs as companies could not manage to pay huge numbers of employees and yet the businesses were low. The demand for products went down and companies stopped producing (Roosevelt, 2016). Families were forced to sell their properties to acquire a source of money for survival. Paying rent was now a challenge and some people were forced to migrate to their original homes. Men were challenged, as they could be jobless while children and wives are working. Secondly, farmers were affected as the tools they had rented from the government were to be paid for and they had no money (Carter, 2014). Drought in the country created a Dust Bowl condition and left people without food. The farmers were left without food for a long period and all the crops died leaving farmers in huge losses. Feeding their families became a challenge. Conclusively, The Great Depression was a phenomenon that could not be wished to occur again. The event made the lives of people depressed. Countries became wretched and could not sustain nor control their economic stability. International businesses were affected greatly as no one was ready to invest where returns are not guaranteed. People became jobless and people suffered to a point of selling their assets at through away prices. Economic stability is a crucial phenomenon. Countries should try hard to ensure a situation like this does not occur again.

References Carter, D. T. (2014). The politics of rage: George Wallace, the origins of the new conservatism, and the transformation of American politics. LSU Press. Roosevelt, F. D. (2016). Acceptance speech. Speech presented at the Democratic National Convention, Philadelphia, PA. Romer, C. D. (2010). The great crash and the onset of the great depression. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 105(3), 597-624.