The impact of the Great Depression in the USA Contents1, What the Great Depression is(How long did it last and what was the cause of it) 2,The impact of the Great Depression(In AgricultureEconomyImport and exports)3,What ended the Great DepressionAbstractThe history of a country is a symbol and a kind of record oftheThe Impacts of the Great Depression in the USWhat was the Great Depression?The Great Depression was a kind of economic crisis of the world, also was a severe destruction in the USA. The Great Depression in the US lasted for about3 years. Across the Latin America and Western Europe, even the whole world. The Great Depression started with the inflation in the US, and when the crisis broke up, it was too late to be gripped in stopping.During that period of time, Herbert Hoover started a series of programs but they were still failed to reverse the inflation. Then the famous economic depression was to be recorded from then on.The impact of the Great Depression in the USAgricultureAs world market prices began to drop in the 1920s, farmers joined manufacturing interests to push for increased tariff protection. These efforts culminated in the passage of theSmoot-Hawley tariffs in 1930. The United States was not alone in escalating tariffs, and world trade plunged. In the 1930s, the volume of U.S. agricultural exports fell by more than 20 percent from the previous decade.Agriculture has not fully recovered from the post-war recession over this period has always been poor farmers, lack of purchasing power in rural areas, farmers went bankrupt.Agricultural exports remained flat until the 1960s but began to rise dramatically by the 1970s, propelled by adjustments in exchange rates as the dollar was freed from the gold standard and by the Soviet Union’s growing appetite for imported grains and oilseeds.Shortly after President Roosevelt was inaugurated in 1933, drought and erosion combined to cause the Dust Bowl, shifting hundreds of thousands of displaced persons off their farms in the Midwest.The "Dust Bowl" was as much man made as weather related. We have a situation of 'factor' layering on 'factor' when dealing with this time in American history. This is a situation where an industry, agriculture, came out of the Depression stronger than before it started. It was also a situation where the survival and success of that industry was caused not so much by what wasdone to overcome an economic loss but by a forced change in practice, technique and a jump start during the New Deal and later World War II.Besides, what was also related to the agriculture ? As for Smoot-Hawley, this tariff act of June, 1930 raised US tariffs to historically high levels. The original intention behind the Act was to provide protection to US farmers against foreign agricultural imports.Whatever the impact was on the imports or the exports, the loss of farmer were still very severe , and the government was trying to protect the farmers through the tariffs but it did not work.There was also a movie called The Grapes of Wrath, which describes the effect of the depression to the US on economy and agriculture in the way of describing a person named John Steinbeck's coming back home life. In the movie, we can see the clarify of the impact which was brought to the person who suffered from the depression.Since the passage of the first Agricultural Adjustment Act in 1933, farm price and income support programs have been the core of agricultural policy in the United States. This policy initially arose as an emergency response to post-World War Ieconomic distress in agriculture that worsened with the onset of the Depression. However, the programs have been adjusted over time as policymakers have responded to the political, social, and economic pressures that agricultural productivity growth, market integration, and structural change have imposed on the farm sector.EconomyHoover and Congress approved the Federal Home Loan Bank Act, to spur new home construction, and reduce foreclosures. The final attempt of the Hoover Administration to stimulate the economy was the passage of the Emergency Relief and Construction Act which included funds for public works programs such as dams and the creation of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation in 1932. The RFC's initial goal was to provide government-secured loans to financial institutions, railroads and farmers. Quarter by quarter the economy went downhill, as prices, profits and employment fell, leading to the political realignment in 1932 that brought to power Franklin Delano RooseveltBy 1932, unemployment had reached 23.6%, and it peaked in early 1933 at 25%, a drought persisted in the agriculturalheartland, businesses and families defaulted on record numbers of loans, and more than 5,000 banks had failed. Hundreds of thousands of Americans found themselves homeless and they began congregating in the numerous Hoovervillesthat had begun to appear across the country.By 1936, the main economic indicators had regained the levels of the late 1920s, except for unemployment, which remained high at 11%, although this was considerably lower than the 25% unemployment rate seen in 1933. In the spring of 1937, American industrial production exceeded that of 1929 and remained level until June 1937. In June 1937, the Roosevelt administration cut spending and increased taxation in an attempt to balance the federal budget. The American economy then took a sharp downturn, lasting for 13 months through most of 1938. Industrial production fell almost 30 per cent within a few months and production of durable goods fell even faster. Unemployment jumped from 14.3% in 1937 to 19.0% in 1938, rising from 5 million to more than 12 million in early 1938.Manufacturing output fell by 37% from the 1937 peak and was back to 1934 levels.Producers reduced their expenditures on durable goods, and inventories declined, but personal income was only 15% lower than it had been at the peak in 1937. Asunemployment rose, consumers' expenditures declined, leading to further cutbacks in production. By May 1938 retail sales began to increase, employment improved, and industrial production turned up after June 1938.After the recovery from the Recession of 1937–1938, conservatives were able to form a bipartisan conservative coalition to stop further expansion of the New Deal and, when unemployment dropped to 2%, they abolished WPA, CCC and the PWA relief programs. Social Security, however, remained in place. Conservatives were able to form a bipartisan conservative coalition to stop further expansion of the New Deal and, when unemployment dropped to 2%, they abolished WPA, CCC and the PWA relief programs. Social Security, however, remained in place.There was also a statistic form concerned about economy situation during the Great Depression :Change in economic indicators 1929-32USA Britain France GermanyIndustrial production −46% −23 −24 −41Wholesale prices −32% −33 −34 −29Foreign trade −70% −60 −54 −61 Unemployment +607% +129 +214 +232From the form, we can see that of all of the loss on theunemployment, the US 's was the most server one compared with Britain, France and Germany.Imports and exportsTalking about the imports and the exports of the US during the Great Depression, we will arrive to a famous act called as The Tarrif Act. The Tariff Act of 1930, otherwise known as the Smoot–Hawley Tariff was an act, sponsored by United States Senator Reed Smoot and Representative Willis C. Hawley, and signed into law on June 17, 1930, that raised US tariffs on over 20,000 imported goods to record levels.The overall level tariffs under the Tariff were the second-highest in US history, exceeded by a small margin only by the Tariff of 1828 and the ensuing retaliatory tariffs by US trading partners reduced American exports and imports by more than half. Some economists have opined that the tariffs contributed to the severity of the Great Depression.When campaigning for president during 1928, one of Herbert Hoover's promises to help beleaguered farmers had been to increase tariffs of agricultural products. Hoover won, and Republicans maintained comfortable majorities in the House and the Senate during 1928. Hoover then asked Congress for an increase of tariffrates for agricultural goods and a decrease of rates for industrial goods.As a result of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff and other countries' responses to it, the world after World War II saw a push towards multi-lateral trading agreements that would prevent a similar situation from unfolding. This led to the Bretton Woods Agreement, in 1944, a great lessening of global tariffs starting in December 1945, and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, in the 1950s.However, the American Tariff League Study of 1951 which compared the effective tariff levels of 43 countries found that only seven countries had a lower tariff level than the US . Eleven countries had effective tariff rates higher than the Smoot-Hawley peak of 19.8% including the United Kingdom . The 43-country average was 14.4% higher than the US level of 1929.Well , in the history , we treat the higher rate of Tariff of the other countries as a revenge, other nations increased tariffs on American-made goods in retaliation, reducing international trade, and worsening the Depression. So the higher of tariff of other countries was not only a consequence of the US during the Great Depression, which was also a catalyst to make the Great Depression in the US worse and worse.In addition to tariffs, many countries implemented non-tariffbarriers to protect their industries in the aftermath of World War II after experiencing the dangers of dependence on imports for vital supplies brought about by free-trade policies. Many nations felt the negative effects of embargoes, naval blockades and submarine warfare upon their national security. An example of this involved Britain and France importing all of their watches and clocks from Switzerland and Germany prior to World War II. They discovered that the lack of a watch industry was a great handicap in building defense equipment during the war. Both nations determined never to be without a watch industry again and placed embargoes on watch imports after World War II.What ended the Great DepressionAccording to Christina Romer, the money supply growth caused by huge international gold inflows was a crucial source of the recovery of the United States economy, and that the economy showed little sign of self-correction. The gold inflows were partly due to devaluation of the U.S. dollar and partly due to deterioration of the political situation in Europe. In their book, A Monetary History of the United States, Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz also attributed the recovery to monetaryfactors, and contended that it was much slowed by poor management of money by the Federal Reserve System. Current Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke agrees that monetary factors played important roles both in the worldwide economic decline and eventual recovery. Bernanke, also sees a strong role for institutional factors, particularly the rebuilding and restructuring of the financial system, and points out that the Depression needs to be examined in international perspective. Economists Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian, believe that the economy should have returned to normal after four years of depression except for continued depressing influences, and point the finger to the lack of downward flexibility in prices and wages, encouraged by Roosevelt Administration policies such as the National Industrial Recovery Act.6 Quotes 3 primary )and abstract, and change we to they conclusion (what do you think )。
