Trusted Writing on History, Travel, and American Culture Since 1949
Depression
Will the current bull market die spectacularly, a la 1929, or—as in 1974—will it strangle in weird silence?
J.P. Morgan did not have much use for either the stock market or reporters. So, when one reporter importunately asked him what the market was going to do one day, he replied, with about equal parts contempt and truth, “It will fluctuate.”
On a hot July night about 15 years ago, a young New Yorker on his way out for the evening decided on a quick shave. When he flicked on his electric razor, however, the lights in his apartment went out.
In 1937, the American economy, which had been slowly rising from the depths it had reached in 1933, suddenly reversed course and sank once more.
It depends on whose interpretation of both history and the current crisis you believe. For one of America’s most prominent supply-side economists, the answer is yes.
Jude Wanniski was among the early leaders in the revival of supply-side economic theory.
The crisis swept over France and Germany and Britain alike, and they all nearly foundered. Now more than ever, it is important to remember that it didn’t just happen here.
Back in 1955, John Kenneth Galbraith called the Great Depression of the 1930s “the most momentous economic occurrence in the history of the United States,” and 30-odd years later that judgment, recorded in Galbraith’s bestseller, The Great Crash
As the twenties roared on, a market crash became inevitable. Why? And who should have stopped it?
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