Economics Questions

Re: What ended The Great Depression?

Rodolphe Topffer — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 23:10:02 GMT

Conservative-Libertarian, can you tell us more about it ?

Re: What ended The Great Depression?

Conservative-Libertarian — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 22:33:53 GMT

In my experience, most economists don't cover the factors leading to the Great Depression like Austrians do. However it seems the Austrians don't cover the entire Great Depression enough.

Re: What ended The Great Depression?

John James — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 21:38:32 GMT

He's spoken before about how he was under a lot of pressure to have his be the first free-market explanation of the crash on the book shelves. I imagine he just didn't have a whole lot of time to go into side subjects (like the GD) in that much detail.

I also could see his interest in (a) wanting to keep the book relatively short, so as to garner more readers, and keep laymen interested, and (b) not get bogged down in the history of other economic events that not only have been covered elsewhere, but also don't have anything to do with the 2000s boom/bust, which was the main subject of the book.

Re: What ended The Great Depression?

cod2 — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 21:06:45 GMT

Thanks, the video pf Tom Woods is great.

Still don't understand - why didn't he cover this in Meltdown at all?

Re: What ended The Great Depression?

Wheylous — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 23:39:48 GMT

Woods discusses the issue here:

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Re: What ended The Great Depression?

Smiling Dave — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 16:30:48 GMT

I've heard it was the huge decline in govt spending right after the war which liberated the economy and ended the depression. Keynesians warned it was the exactly wrong thing to do.

Re: What ended The Great Depression?

gamma_rat — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 16:07:00 GMT

Roosevelt died.

Re: What ended The Great Depression?

John James — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 15:22:28 GMT

It depends on how you define "depression" and "end". Sowell marks WWII as a big catalyst...not because war time spending leads to prosperity, but because WWII put an end to The New Deal...

(for more, see here, and here, and here)

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Re: What ended The Great Depression?

Bert — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 15:14:04 GMT

Government spending and John Keynes finally deciding "hey, there's no depression."

What ended The Great Depression?

cod2 — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 15:06:34 GMT

I have browsed through Rothbard's book, but it ends at 1932.

I have read Tom Woods' Meltdown - and although there is a chapter on TGD, it doesn't anywhere say what actually ended it. It correctly says that Hoover wasn't a free marketer, that Roosevelt made it worse and that WW2 didn't bring prospertity - all good points - except what ended it.

So, is there an Austrian School book that does address this question? Surely the Depression didn't suddenly on one fine morning decide that it had had enough and it was time to go away? Surely the US hadn't overnnight become a low-regulation free market?