THE BIG ONE IN 1929. We hear about it from our grannies. WHAT THAT was LIKE and what we can expect with THIS ONE. Sadly I note that three airlines went bust this week and about a dozen banks & Wall Street Corps are hovering on the brink. The Fed, IMF are making moves for a fix on Bear Stearns. A hopeless maneuver. The USA owes l0 trillion to China which Bush spent on a dumb war, a mendacious war, to get cheap oil. Social Security Adminstration is going bust, ditto Med-I-Care and with the BOOMERS coming, that foreshadows some dire events. I face it, do you? We're at the very edge of a recession!  It's not just us, either. France's Soc Gen Traders lost 7 billion, blamed it on some kid. A "Rogue Trader" they call it. My impression that is to cover up their own bad bets. All these Stock market guys around teh world are addicted to gambing, to easy money in big numbers. Legal racketeering as they all try to get investors involved. So we see a cloud on the horizon. Folks tell me, don't worry so much --So far, this is Nothing like The BIG ONE in  '29. Hmmm. I remember that one. My granny turned the house into a BOARDING HOUSE. My German Granny had to bring a wheelbarrow of cash to buy a loaf of bread, so badly devalued was the Deutsch Mark. Then I wonder, What were the symtoms and the effects of the Wall Street Crash of 1929? I google and see that:

In 1929, 659 banks went bust. In 1931, 2294 banks went bust.

Both industrial and farming production fell by 40% and average wages fell
by 60%.

Unemployment so bad in the great depression economic disaster that people
were forced to use free soup kitchens. They had no money for food.

In 1933, 14 million Americans were unemployed.

By 1933, 5000 banks had gone bankrupt and total farm income in the USA has
fallen to $5 billion. American international trade had been drastically
reduced from $10 billion in 1928, to $3 billion in 1932.

In Cleveland, a big steel town, 50% of the people were unemployed in 1932.
In Toledo they was 80% unemployment.

Every major town and city had a “Hooverville”, which was a collection of
huts and shacks housing the homeless.

In 1931, 238 people were admitted to hospital due to malnutrition and
starvation, 45 of them died. Who knows who died NOT in hospitals.

The Bank of New York went bust and 400,000 depositors lost their savings.

President Hoover got all the blame…The inflation in Germany brought
Hitler into power.

WHO WAS TO BLAME? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression
Click there, then come back

What caused the Great Depression, the worst economic depression in US
history? It was not just one factor, but instead a combination of domestic
and worldwide conditions that led to the Great Depression. As such, there
is no agreed upon list of all the causes of the Great Depression. Here
instead is a list of the top reasons that historians and economists have
cited as causing the Great Depression.

The effects of the Great Depression was huge across the world. Not only did
it lead to the New Deal in America but more significantly, it was a direct
cause of the rise of extremism in Germany leading to World War II.

1. Stock Market Crash of 1929
Many believe erroneously that the stock market crash that occurred on Black
Tuesday, October 29, 1929 is one and the same with the Great Depression. In
fact, it was one of the major causes that led to the Great Depression. Two
months after the original crash in October, stockholders had lost more than
$40 billion dollars. Even though the stock market began to regain some of
its losses, by the end of 1930, it just was not enough and America at that point, truly
entered what is called the Great Depression.

2. Bank Failures
Throughout the 1930s over 9,000 banks failed. Bank deposits were uninsured
and thus as banks failed people simply lost their savings. Surviving banks,
unsure of the economic situation and concerned for their own survival,
stopped being as willing to create new loans. This exasperated the
situation leading to less and less expenditures.

The Enron type maneuvers soured the world on our Stock Market and now our banks are failing, and our big financial houses.

3. Reduction in Purchasing Across the Board
With the stock market crash and the fears of further economic woes,
individuals from all classes stopped purchasing items. This then led to a
reduction in the number of items produced and thus a reduction in the
workforce. As people lost their jobs, they were unable to keep up with
paying for items they had bought through installment plans and their items
were repossessed. More and more inventory began to accumulate. The
unemployment rate rose above 25% which meant, of course, even less spending
to help alleviate the economic situation.

We've lost more jobs in the last year than ever in recent history since the Depression. More firings. More downsizing. NAFTA, GAT and the WTO have factories moving to the third world and now even FARMERS
are moving their farms south of the border. New trends!

4. American Economic Policy with Europe
As businesses began failing, the government created the Hawley-Smoot Tariff
in 1930 to help protect American companies. This charged a high tax for
imports thereby leading to less trade between America and foreign countries
along with some economic retaliation.

I read that Egypt has just had to stop charging tariffs on wheat coming in as wheat just doubled in price and their people are starving. They tried to give the populace a break. That's good.

5. Drought Conditions
While not a direct cause of the Great Depression, the drought that occurred
in the Mississippi Valley in 1930 was of such proportions that many could
not even pay their taxes or other debts and had to sell their farms for no
profit to themselves. This was the topic of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of
Wrath.

Now, oddly I read that water is drying up everywhere, no rain, lakes sinking into their mudbeds. American millionaires are buying up water rights in strange corners of the globe to sell water to the peons. I read that Bush and Ted Turner bought a million acres each in PARAGUAY and Patagonia.

Dorothea Lange shot this famed photo of homeless Florence Owens, California mother of 7 living in a tent, eating frozen vegetables out of fields and birds the children would catch.

MORE ON MRS OWENS, the lady in this photograph, an amazing life! http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/mag/2006/04/30/stories/2006043000380500.htm

MORE on  DOROTHEA LANGE, the PHOTOGRAPHER
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothea_Lange