Talk:Great Depression/Archive 6

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Please add an explanation from the Austrian School

Though several schools of economic thought have their explanations listed here, the Austrian School is excluded. This is bad, because the Austrians were the only school to actually predict the Great Depression. RichPaul (talk) 10:28, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Great_Depression#Austrian_School --Pass3456 (talk) 21:34, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

Role of Women section

This section seems to be really out of place. We don't really talk about the effects on any specific group or subgroup. I really reads like someone copied it out of a high school research paper. I recommend removing it from this page, although it might find a place on one of the country specific Great Depression pages. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DrVentureWasRight (talk • contribs) 21:45, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Who is this "we" that does not want to talk about women?? Obviously some narrow economist who Is unaware of the wealth of reliable sources on the great depression. Fact is the RS in many fields are publishing books and articles and chapters dealing with the experience of women in the Great Depression. In simple economic terms, since the job market was gender stratified, the employment situation for women was entirely different than for men. Perhaps the critic does not think that men should be studied either? or poor people? Are the political implications are allowed to be mentioned, about the social and intellectual dimensions? Movies? Family roles? Fertility? Try browsing: 1) "'An Old Order Is Passing': The Rise of Applied Learning in University‐Based Teacher Education during the Great Depression" D D'Amico - History of Education Quarterly 2015 2) "Population, Politics, and Unemployment Policy in the Great Depression" by M Cohen - Social Science History, 2014; 3) "The effects of the great recession on family structure and fertility" by A Cherlin, E Cumberworth, SP Morgan The ANNALS 2013 4) Mothers in the fatherland: Women, the family and Nazi politics by C Koonz - 2013 5) The little girl who fought the great depression: Shirley Temple and 1930s America by JF Kasson - 2014 -6) "Lessons from history: Surviving old age during The Great Depression in the United States" by SH Matthews, RE Dunkle - Journal of aging studies 2013 7) "Banking crises and mortality during the Great Depression: evidence from US urban populations, 1929–1937" D Stuckler, C Meissner, P Fishback, (2012) 8) To Work and to Wed Female Employment, Feminism, and the Great Depression by L Scharf - 1980; 9) "American Religion and the Great Depression" J Butler Church History, 2011; 10) "Women's work and economic crisis: some lessons of the Great Depression" by R Milkman - Review of Radical Political Economics 1976 - 11) "Surviving Tough Times: Saskatchewan Women Teachers in the Great Depression" by J Corman, C Ensslen - Saskatchewan History, 2012 etc etc. Rjensen (talk) 23:56, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

We is the Wikipedia community. Now, I didn't say we shouldn't talk about women. I said that it was tonally out of place in this article. We could have a section on the effects of various groups in the depression, but I suspect that would be highly dependent upon country and culture. We could also branch it off in to it's own page entirely. That could work, but there really isn't enough material here to make a good page. If you're interested in adding in more detail then making a page like 'Effects on Women in the Great Depression' could work well. DrVentureWasRight (talk) 06:54, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

The GD is important because of its impact on people. These people are all males?? I think not. Wiki reports what the RS say about the GD. The material is from an advanced scholarly study. Rjensen (talk) 07:32, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

I was about to say the Role of women and household economics section seems out of place in this article - and should be moved to another article (wider context than Great Depression) - perhaps move it to talk page until someone can suggest a better article for it ? - Rod57 (talk) 18:25, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Duplicate paragraph on British financial crisis of 1931

Under Effects#Great Britain we have

The world financial crisis began to overwhelm Britain in 1931; investors across the world started withdrawing their gold from London at the rate of £2½ millions a day.[77] Credits of £25 millions each from the Bank of France and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and an issue of £15 millions fiduciary note slowed, but did not reverse the British crisis. The financial crisis now caused a major political crisis in Britain in August 1931. With deficits mounting, the bankers demanded a balanced budget; the divided cabinet of Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald's Labour government agreed; it proposed to raise taxes, cut spending and most controversially, to cut unemployment benefits 20%. The attack on welfare was totally unacceptable to the Labour movement. MacDonald wanted to resign, but King George V insisted he remain and form an all-party coalition "National Government". The Conservative and Liberals parties signed on, along with a small cadre of Labour, but the vast majority of Labour leaders denounced MacDonald as a traitor for leading the new government. Britain went off the gold standard, and suffered relatively less than other major countries in the Grade Depression. In the 1931 British election, the Labour Party was virtually destroyed, leaving MacDonald as Prime Minister for a largely Conservative coalition.[143][79]

And under German_banking_crisis_of_1931_and_British_crisis we have

The world financial crisis now began to overwhelm Britain; investors across the world started withdrawing their gold from London at the rate of £2½ millions a day.[77] Credits of £25 millions each from the Bank of France and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and an issue of £15 millions fiduciary note slowed, but did not reverse the British crisis. The financial crisis now caused a major political crisis in Britain in August 1931. With deficits mounting, the bankers demanded a balanced budget; the divided cabinet of Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald's Labour government agreed; it proposed to raise taxes, cut spending and most controversially, to cut unemployment benefits 20%. The attack on welfare was totally unacceptable to the Labour movement. MacDonald wanted to resign, but King George V insisted he remain and form an all-party coalition "National government." The Conservative and Liberals parties signed on, along with a small cadre of Labour, but the vast majority of Labour leaders denounced MacDonald as a traitor for leading the new government. Britain went off the gold standard, and suffered relatively less than other major countries in the Great Depression. In the 1931 British election the Labour Party was virtually destroyed, leaving MacDonald as Prime Minister for a largely Conservative coalition.[78][79]

How can we restructure to avoid the duplication ? Is this a role for transclusion, or a separate article ? - Rod57 (talk) 18:49, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 21 September 2017

I want to add the exact second it started and ended 156.110.34.242 (talk) 15:36, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. SparklingPessimist ^{Scream at me!} 15:55, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

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Symbol of the GD?

The Man on the Street Corner Selling Apples!
From the snippet view of this article:
"Jim Hill, the railroad builder, had promoted a big Apple Show in Spokane and himself, bought all the apples on exhibit for ten dollars a box. Naturally word got around the whole United States: "Buy an orchard in Washington!" The anticlimax came in the early 30's when apples brought ninety cents a box, and the man on the street corner selling them became the symbol of the Great Depression." Lmstearn (talk) 03:42, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 November 2017

change 1929 and lasted until 1941. to 1929 and lasted until 1939. 174.111.253.128 (talk) 14:02, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

Not done: This change would require reliable sourcing and consensus. —KuyaBriBri^Talk 14:57, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

The United States factor

The topic is about a worldwide depression in the early-mid 1900s, which is a topic within global economics, not just United States economics. So worldwide factors must be touched on and treated, for example the then-recent Great War in Europe, and the then-looming WWII, all of these events coming about because of an anti-democratic Europe environment. -Inowen (talk) 01:48, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Good point. I've reworded the sentence accordingly. Otherwise more information about other countries should also be added. The sources does mostly discuss the Great Depression starting in the US. Kiwifist (talk) 03:47, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Applicability of Wikipedia Fringe guideline

A recent edit war has twice removed and restored section headings which give some explanation the stamp "mainstream" and others the tar and feathers of WP:FRINGE via the euphemism "heterodox". Anyone can answer here but I'll shout out to @Emass100 and Lawrencekhoo:. Our WP:NPOV policy should have a pretty high bar. Why do some in this debate say the heterdox views can be labeled WP:FRINGE, whether we use "heterodox" or other word to mean WP:FRINGE? Please support your answer with quotes from the FRINGE policy and RSs which support your view. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:37, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Colonies

Why is there only one reference to the word colony in this article? Most of the world's population lived in colonial possessions that are not mentioned in this article. Many of those suffered far worse than their colonial masters, and have adequate content in their own Wikipedia articles:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression_in_India#Impact_of_the_Great_Depression

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Congo#Great_Depression

Other colonial holdings were mired in it, and there is a litany of source material available, but no mention in their specific articles. Is this a First World focused article?--Senor Freebie (talk) 16:41, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

That's a good criticism. I added a new section on colonial Africa, focused on British and French efforts, as well as a little more material on South Africa. Rjensen (talk) 19:48, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Million(s)

Why 'millions' in the plural throughout the article (one millions, two millions, etc)? It reeks of English as a second language. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.68.190.94 (talk) 10:42, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 September 2018

I REALLY LIKE THE GREAT DEPRESSION 38.67.7.2 (talk) 17:09, 13 September 2018 (UTC) EVERYONE IS AMAZING iLOVE EVERONE

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Random character sequence (talk) 20:05, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Additional cost efforts to prop up farm product pricing

(Added: Dad and Mom told us children stories about when the government (President FDR; in order to prop up food prices ordered) kerosene poured on potatoes then dumped shiploads into the ocean to prevent them from being eaten.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2607:FCC8:A306:7800:3C49:9BD5:4924:F22 (talk) 17:16, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Italy

As an italian i was really shocked to read that according to the article "the great depression hit Italy very hard". About every historian can confirm that this is not true and Italy wasn't hit as hard as the other main european countries. Everybody but those of one specific political side...i ask wikipedia to cite both versions to ensure impartiality. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kramnoitamalcxe (talk • contribs) 19:23, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Discussion of U.S. Unemployment Rates is Misleading

(Crossposted from Recession of 1937-1938 page)

The numbers are based on Lebergott's estimates. These have two major problems and then a third interpretive problem when compared to modern unemployment numbers.

1) They exclude people directly employed in WPA and other New Deal programs. This is an issue Michael Darby covered over four decades ago in an article entitled "Three-and-a-Half Million U.S. Employees Have Been Mislaid: Or, an Explanation of Unemployment, 1934-1941".

Now for certain purposes, it may make sense to include WPA and other direct employment along with unemployed workers (notably, in estimating a reserve army of labor that is available to be hired by private employers) but it is not the current methodological practice and it misleads lay readers in the understanding of the 1930s economic experience. At the very least, both numbers should be published side by side so that readers can get a more accurate sense of what was going on, as Professor Mathy (2018) does in this recent paper on long-term unemployed during the 1930s.

2) Even the Lebergott estimates as adjusted by Darby are misleading because they are not monthly series like we have today and are based on a number of estimation strategies that leads to "spurious volatility" and incorrect estimates, or at least, estimates that are at variance with modern methodologies. Professor Christina Romer (1986)showed this in a lot of detail. To quote her at length.

"If the labor force were also procyclical in the 1900-1930 period,
then it is clear that Lebergott's labor force numbers are too high in
recessions and too low in booms. This implies that the unemployment
rate calculated as a residual is artificially high in recessions and
artificially low in booms. Thus the historical unemployment rate is, by
construction, more volatile than the truth [...] 

To estimate annual employment, Lebergott uses more complicated
procedures. He estimates it as the sum of several component series on
employment in various sectors and among various classes of workers.
To form these component series he begins with basic data on employ-
ment in each sector in whatever base years are available. He then
interpolates each employment series using some annual variable he
believes to be related to employment in that sector. The most com-
mon interpolating variables are measures of output, fragments of
employment data, and indexes of labor demand"

She goes onto explain the problems with this procedure. Meanwhile, we do have a number of estimates, the best of which is the National Industrial Conference Board monthly data as Mathy (2018) points out. These estimates continued after the war and thus we can compare them to official statistics and see how they are reasonably close. These numbers broadly conform to Lebergott's estimation strategy but, as Romer predicts, the unemployment rate is much lower than his estimates. In addition, we get to see month to month patterns we don't in Lebergott's data that qualitatively change our narrative from the era.

3) The final issue is that this number, as low as it is, is still an overestimate of unemployment when we compare it to modern headline unemployment. Today's measure, U3, doesn't include "discouraged workers" i.e. workers who desire employment but have given up searching. Meanwhile, the methodology used for the 1930s number, previous to the the search concept of unemployment developed by the WPA in the late 1930s which is used today, does capture what we now consider discouraged workers on the idea that all able bodied males are supposed to be working. Thus the appropriate comparison for the unemployment rate is U5, not U3. When compared to U5, a different narrative emerges. For example, in June 2016 U5 was 6 percent while in June 2017, U5 was 5.4 percent. This suggests the economy, while not at full employment, was recovered from the great depression in 1937 before the recession of 1937-1938. The article should be updated to reflect the best avalaible data on the 1930s economic performance and the true meaning of the "Roosevelt Recession". See e.g. Card 2011.

References Card, David. "Origins of the unemployment rate: the lasting legacy of measurement without theory." American Economic Review 101.3 (2011): 552-57.

Darby, Michael R. "Three-and-a-half million US employees have been mislaid: or, an explanation of unemployment, 1934-1941." Journal of Political Economy 84.1 (1976): 1-16.

Romer, Christina. "Spurious volatility in historical unemployment data." Journal of Political Economy 94.1 (1986): 1-37.

Mathy, Gabriel P. "Hysteresis and persistent long-term unemployment: the American Beveridge Curve of the Great Depression and World War II." Cliometrica 12.1 (2018): 127-152. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nathan Tankus (talk • contribs) 20:44, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Dates wrong

This text is mostly incorrect. I would like updated material regarding the great depreasion, without false dates. Wikipedia states that the information was last updated 17 days ago. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Regitsu (talk • contribs) 17:16, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

@Regitsu: Which dates do you believe to be incorrect? Do you have reliable sources which we can cite for your dates? DuncanHill (talk) 17:23, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

As far as I can judge it, the text is too focused on the situation in the U.S. The problem actually started in GB and then infected other countries, including the U.S. So the dates in the article are true for the U.S., but not applicable for the situation outside. This is mainly because the article ignores the development in Europe, and regarding this continent, it especially ignores Great Britain with London as the place of initial failure of relevant stock markets and early partial collapse of banking activities. 188.99.107.40 (talk) 11:10, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Starting Point: London Stock Exchange's crash of September 1929

Globalization can be both, a blessing and a curse... The starting point of the "Great Depression" was the London Stock Exchange's crash of September 1929, massively influencing/ impairing other stock markets worldwide, and finally causing Wall Street Black Thursday crash. This should be mentioned in the article. 136.219.16.35 (talk) 14:17, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes, absolutely. These facts should be reflected in the article. 188.99.107.40 (talk) 11:15, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Soviet Union part

Since the article is protected I would like to ask to have the sentence that reads as follows:

The Soviet Union was the world's only socialist state with very little international trade. Its economy was not tied to the rest of the world and was mostly unaffected by the Great Depression.[165] Its forced transformation from a rural to an industrial society succeeded in building up heavy industry, at the cost of millions of lives in rural Russia and Ukraine.

to be changed towards this:

The Soviet Union was the world's only socialist state with very little international trade. Its economy was not tied to the rest of the world and was mostly unaffected by the Great Depression.[165] Its forced transformation from a rural to an industrial society succeeded in building up heavy industry, however at the same time millions of lives were lost in rural Ukraine and South-West of Russia because of a forced famine through an artificially induced scarcity of crops and other foods.

This wording is clearer and closer to the context of the citation since it does not produce the second fact from the first, but only shows that they happened concurrently and are not necessarily connected (the famine did not happen due to the industrialization by itself or at all). 188.230.49.209 (talk) 17:52, 10 August 2021 (UTC)