Lessons from the Great Depression For Dummies | Date: 28 April 2011, 06:04
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Lessons from the Great Depression For Dummies (For Dummies (Business & Personal Finance))
By Wiegand
* Publisher: For Dummies
* Number Of Pages: 288
* Publication Date: 2009-07-07
* ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0470487488
* ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780470487488
Product Description:
An in-depth look at the lessons from one of the worst times in America's financial history
Are you worried about the economy? You're certainly not alone. According to most economists, the turmoil that Americans will face over the next four years will be the roughest financial times since the Great Depression-and many are looking backward to learn how to survive an ongoing and sustained economic downturn.
Lessons from the Great Depression For Dummies takes a historic look at the events and circumstances leading up to the 1929 crash and subsequent depression, then the economic aftermath-particularly the economic response. This book paints a historic picture of those times and examines not only the critical failures that led to a decade of depression, but also the positive and negative aftershocks that created the modern American lifestyle. You'll see how the lessons we learned have shaped today's political and financial landscape-and how they'll continue to be part of the American experience for future generations.
* Provides information on what was learned from the Great Depression and how those lessons have shaped the economic foundation of modern society
* Looks at the various factors that combined to create the Great Depression
* Examines the social and cultural impact that the Depression had on the American people-and how our lives today are very much a product of those factors
* Steve Wiegand, n award-winning political journalist and history writer, is the also the author of U.S. History for Dummies, 2nd Edition
For anyone looking to understand how the American people survived and emerged from a financial disaster with their heads held high and their spirit intact, Lessons from the Great Depression For Dummies is the ideal resource.
Summary: Seems we are doomed to repeat history over and over...
Rating: 5
Americans have VERY short attention spans, and it's far too easy to be heavily influenced by the hype of the 24/7 news cycle. But stepping back to read a book like Lessons from the Great Depression For Dummies by Steve Wiegand shows that history continually repeats itself, and we make the same mistakes over and over. That's not to minimize the pain and suffering that many are going through currently. But if we'd only pay attention to history, we could avoid a fair amount of our troubles.
Contents:
Part 1 - Heading in a Mess: It Was a Dark and Stormy Decade; Economic Basics - You Say "Depression", I Say "Broke"; Prelude to Disaster - The Economy Prior to 1929
Part 2 - Getting Depressed: Going Bust - A Depression Is Born; Coming Face to Face with Hard Times; Troubles on the Farm; Misery Loves Company - How the Rest of the World Fared
Part 3 - Living Through the Great Depression: On the Road; Demagogues and Desperadoes; Having Fun in Spite of It All; Labor Rising - Unions in the Great Depressions
Part 4 - Fixing Things: A Tale of Two Presidents; Roosevelt's New Deal; Lessons Learned from the Great Depression
Part 5 - The Part of Tens: Ten Good Movies Made in or about the Great Depression; Ten Things Invented or Popularized in the Great Depression; Ten No-So-Depressing Things about the Great Depression
Appendix - For Further Reading; Index
Like all Dummies titles, Wiegand doesn't attempt to give a deep academic treatise on everything that made up the event commonly known as the Great Depression. Instead, he attempts to paint the picture of what led up to the Great Depression, how the Great Depression affected life during those times, and how the events of today compare and contrast to those times 80 years ago. And with all Dummies titles, you get a fair amount of humor thrown in for good measure. Our own economic times have been painted as the worst since 1929, so Wiegand has plenty of material to work with as he attempts to draw his comparisons.
I think what struck me most was the similarities between the attitudes of the government and the attitudes of the financial markets. The presidents up to the time of Roosevelt had taken a "hands-off" approach to business, and felt that little needed to be done to rein in excesses. As with today, big business had government where they wanted them... right in their hip pockets protecting their interests, not the interests of the common man. Same with financial institutions. The banking laws were much more loose, and there was little to protect the depositors unless you were worth millions (and even then you weren't completely safe). Financial schemes and frauds were common, and the losers were often those who had little to lose in the first place. When everything came crashing down, the lower ends of society took the brunt of it. Roosevelt put in place many things that were extremely controversial in their day, even though we take them for granted now. Unemployment insurance, the FDIC, Social Security, the list goes on... Obviously the flip side of all this spending is that we have to pay it back at some time, and we've never been good at that. Needless to say, the parallels to today's environment are strangely similar...
If you haven't ever read much on the Great Depression to get beyond the surface media play, I would suggest Lessons from the Great Depression For Dummies. It will give you a much better working knowledge of that part of our history, and could whet your appetite for something deeper.
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