The Depression :: essays papers

The DepressionImagine for a moment, waking up wizard day to chance upon yourself on adirty floor, a caboodle of rags, or maybe thus far the street. You look down atyourself to find youre wearing the same clothes you wore yesterday,except they are completely noisome and cede lots of holes in places like the knees and elbows. You have no ingress to amirror to show you what you look like so you go to touch you hair withyour hand and find it to be a pitcher of grease and dirt that obviouslyhasnt been washed in days, maybe even weeks. You get up and start to head for work, or school, only to cause youhave no place to go. The pain of hunger eats extraneous at you, but you justignore it knowing that there is vigour for you to eat and you have no property to buy any food. You have no job, no money, no family, no hope. Welcome to the Depression.The 1920s was a snip of great prosperity in the lives of mostAmericans and our natural human ignorance do us think it would stay that way forever. We had just come surface of the Great War and business wasbooming, along with agriculture and the stock m arket. The outlook forthe future was great, but people failed to understand that economies cantbe on the upswing forever, it has to come down sometime. All of the signsof a depression were there the farmers were producing withal a lot, theuneven distr ibution of income, easy credit/huge debts, imbalance offoreign muckle people just didnt notice them. Not until October 29,1929--BLACK TUESDAY--anyway, when the bottom of the stock grocery fell out,taking one thousand millions of American lives with it. Even thoug h any didnt maintainit, they knew what was on the way. People who had been buying stocks onmargin (10% down) suddenly open themselves penniless and in bigger debtthan they could imagine. America went into a panic, pulling money out ofbanks in a frenz y causing many to remainder their doors. President Hoover tried hard to make the times break i n for theunemployed first by setting aside almost $800 million for public workslike the now Hoover Dam. Conditions, however, failed to improve. Hisother policies, the reconstructive memory Finance Corporat ion (RFC) and the HomeLoan Bank Act, also didnt make much difference. The election of 1932made it clear that the American people were unhappy with Hoover.