Great Depression Causes

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Most believe that the Great Depression is a direct result of the Stock Market crash in 1929 when in fact it was merely a trigger. However, there were several more reasons that ultimately led to the depression. Many Americans, mainly of the middle and upper classes felt very euphoric due to the recent success of the nation’s economy. This lead to many hard working Americans to invest in too risky, wilder investments. Three additional principal explanations for the collapse of Wall Street and the American economy included international economic despairs, poor income distribution, and the psychology of public confidence (site textbook). A healthy economy could easily recover from such woes, therefor it is ridiculous to say the stock market crash was the single cause of the Great Depression. …show more content…

But there were people out to exploit these feeling for their own profit without having any regards to ramifications that were soon to follow. Banking institutions began to offer credit to investors hoping the profits would turn a big margin and payoff quickly. One of the frauds that quickly started taking advantage of the easy loans was the Florida land boom. The Florida land boom Real estate developers advertised Florida as a tropical paradise and investors started unloading large amounts of funds on land they had never seen with money they didn’t have and selling it for even higher prices (quote textbook). Within just a few years the Florida land boom had hit rock bottom losing investments and investors dues to multiple investigations of suspect financial practices and illegal shipping of supplies on the

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