The Full Circle Crash

Nov 23rd 1929 - The Economist

The slump on the New York Stock Exchange, which has resulted in this great change in the monetary outlook, is one of the spectacular episodes of financial history. A prolonged upward movement, the extent of which is illustrated by some graphs which we print in a later column, has been built up over a series of years on the amazing and unexampled prosperity of America. But some two years ago the speculative movement seemed to lose all touch with reality; and in spite of occasionally vigorous but more often half-hearted, measures by the banking authorities of the United States, speculative fever spread throughout the nation and carried prices, mainly with the aid of borrowed money, to fantastic heights.

It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good.

The fall of Bank rate on Thursday by another half per cent is an outward and visible sign that the dramatic and precipitous slump of the last three weeks in Wall Street has definitely relieved the pressure on the world's money markets which the New York situation has been exerting so continuously for the last two years.

Very few could have dared to hope...

The human cost...'My grandfather jumped off a roof in the 1929 crash'

[tip Smart Takes]