Crash of 1929
The Crash of 1929 The movie starts off with a huge crowd of people panicking and shouting out in front of the New York Stock Exchange. Ironically the year before in 1928 people on New Year’s Eve celebrated what had been a decade of prosperity and confidence. A woman by the name of Rita Cushman was being interviewed and she stated about the days prior to the crash that people “…Thought it was going to be good every day, it was going to be great always…there was a feeling of optimism and power you couldn’t describe today”. Oh has the world changed since then.
To begin, a stock is a share of a company; this stock or stocks are sold and bought on the floor of the NYC Stock Exchange in New York. For 8 straight years before the Crash of 1929, stocks were rising and rising. To my knowledge this was The Dawn of the Consumer Revolution, America was discovering new ways to improve life such as, radios, washing machines, deodorant (thank God), air conditions and etc. Certain stockholders at the time lived like royalty by selling and buying stock, nothing else. One man named William Durant life revolved around the stocks. He controlled so much money he could drive up the price for a stock and sell it making millions. He himself saved the market once by putting his money into it as it was crashing and balanced it out. Everyone were getting into stocks, grocers, the men shining your shoes, the barbers, heck every time you would walk in to the barbers or get your shoe shinned they always asked “ so how’s the market”? Everyone wanted to become rich and fast but all but a few ignored a man by the name of Roger Babson who was a critic of Wall Street, warning people the stocks would crash two years in advance and even up to the days of the actual crash! He was ignored and hasted by many people and seen as un-patriotic. These people were so hypnotized by the Stock Exchange and the money that was to be made in stocks; it was easy money! What struck me was that the government did
To begin, a stock is a share of a company; this stock or stocks are sold and bought on the floor of the NYC Stock Exchange in New York. For 8 straight years before the Crash of 1929, stocks were rising and rising. To my knowledge this was The Dawn of the Consumer Revolution, America was discovering new ways to improve life such as, radios, washing machines, deodorant (thank God), air conditions and etc. Certain stockholders at the time lived like royalty by selling and buying stock, nothing else. One man named William Durant life revolved around the stocks. He controlled so much money he could drive up the price for a stock and sell it making millions. He himself saved the market once by putting his money into it as it was crashing and balanced it out. Everyone were getting into stocks, grocers, the men shining your shoes, the barbers, heck every time you would walk in to the barbers or get your shoe shinned they always asked “ so how’s the market”? Everyone wanted to become rich and fast but all but a few ignored a man by the name of Roger Babson who was a critic of Wall Street, warning people the stocks would crash two years in advance and even up to the days of the actual crash! He was ignored and hasted by many people and seen as un-patriotic. These people were so hypnotized by the Stock Exchange and the money that was to be made in stocks; it was easy money! What struck me was that the government did