Great Depression Vs Great Recession Essay

1721 Words4 Pages

Aiden deAbreu-Reese
Khosrohzadeh
English Period 4
April 25th, 2014
The Great Depression versus the Great Recession
Since being founded, America has been a capitalist society. Being a capitalist society has its benefits, and the consequences are rather harsh. To be a capitalist society people must be buying products and spending money to keep the economy balanced, but once those people stop spending money, the economy goes off balance and the nation enters a recession. Once a recession drastically takes a downturn, the nation enters what is known as a depression. In 2008 America entered a recession and its consequences were severe enough for some people, such as President Barack Obama, to compare the recent crisis to the world’s darkest economic depression in history, the Great Depression. Although the Great Depression and the Great Recession of 2008 have similarities and differences between the stock market and government spending, political issues, lifestyle changes, and wealth distribution, the Great Depression had far more detrimental consequences than the Recession.
After World War I America became the world’s center for trade. The economic center of the world moved from London, England to New York City, New York, United States of America, and more specifically Wall Street (Out of Many page 848). The 1920’s marked economic and social change in America, and much of the change was due to women. Women had taken over men’s jobs during the war while their husbands were overseas, and once the men came home the women wanted to keep their positions. To show gratitude to these women Congress passed the 19th Amendment on August 18th, 1920 which prohibited any United States citizen from having the right to vote based on sex. This chan...

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...he private sector could produce (Harvey).
In the 1922 Congress passed the Fordney-McCumber Act which raised tariffs to 40%, and in 1933 Hoover passed the Smoot-Hawley tariff which raised tariffs to 60%. These tariffs caused foreign markets to turn their backs on American goods because foreign markets couldn’t afford to pay 40-60% extra on tariffs. The result of the tariffs was a decline in world trade of 66% (Gill). The world became a global market post world war and allowed the loans between countries to become much easier, and this allowed the stimulus plan to work (Bartlett).
In conclusion, the stock market and federal spending of both the Great Depression and Great Recession proved very similar, although the pre-Great Depression tariffs cut off foreign markets which made a loan impossible, therefore making the Great Depression gain an edge of the Recession.

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