3.18.2010
I have a blog that as a history buff, I just love. it covers news articles from 1930. Why is this interesting? I’ll put the link here in a second but let me just start with his words on why he created the blog in the first place:
“I believe 1929-1930 has a couple of important similarities to 2008-2009. First and fundamentally, there was a big buildup of debt leading up to both. This was followed by a couple of major economic problems, including many banks running into trouble and a loss in perceived wealth by lots of people. These problems in turn have deflationary implications since they lead to less credit and spending …”
“for the technical stock people, the markets in the two periods do have interesting similarities. In both, the stock markets hit a high and then had a very scary, sharp crash where the panic level was high for a short time, followed by a nice relief rally when the immediate panic abated.
In the case of 1929 this market break is what is commonly known as the Great Crash, including Black Thursday on October 24,1929, quickly followed by Blacks Monday and Tuesday on October 28 and 29. The Dow began 1929 at about the 300 level, hit a peak of about 380, and the Crash cut it almost in half to 200.
What’s not as commonly known about 1929 is that the Great Crash was followed by a nice rally with the Dow almost hitting 300 again in April 1930, and, at the point where we begin this blog in June 1930, still hovering in the 270’s – not that far off where it was at the start of 1929. The real damage was done in the following two years when, following a spectacular series of further declines and rallies, the Dow bottomed out at 42 – almost 90% off its peak.”
Read more here: http://newsfrom1930.blogspot.com/
I may add this to my blog roll because this is most instructive – getting opinions from people like me is nice (I guess!) but taking in raw data and formulating your own opinions is much preferred. What is great here is that since both economic meltdowns were caused in a big part by EXCESSIVE CREDIT GROWTH (not free market economics as many slips and falls lawyers turned economic experts in Congress will have you believe), we can follow the daily news from 1930 and see how they had many of the same issues arise along with day to day humdrum news events. As I said – MOST INSTRUCTIVE.
Enjoy!
