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  • Its often called the greatest financial crisis in the history of the United States because

  • it lasted ten years and crashed the entire economy.

  • The American leadership tried everything to save the economy but nothing worked out, every

  • solution proved to be ineffective in the face of such a crisis, and the only thing that

  • could save the economy was the deadliest war in human history (WW2).

  • Its July of the year 1914, world war one breaks up, and the entire European continent is in

  • conflict, but the war slowly spreads to the rest of the world.

  • Everyone is eager to win, but unfortunately, supplies are limited especially food.

  • So the allies turn to the United States for help, since it wasn't directly affected

  • by the war and had the economic power to do that.

  • War by no means is good, but it brought a period of economic prosperity to the United

  • States.

  • The demand for equipment, weapons, wheat was at an all-time high, and no one else could

  • fill that gap except the US.

  • If you were a farmer, you could produce as much wheat as you wanted and could sell it

  • easily at a high price.

  • Since countries with troops at the battlefield had to take any measures to win the war.

  • By the end of the war, the United States also entered the game which further increased the

  • demand since soldiers needed equipment and food.

  • It was probably the best time to invest since the economy was booming and everyone was making

  • money.

  • Even though the war has ended by 1918.

  • The demand for American goods especially wheat didn't fall because the entire world was

  • still recovering.

  • When farmers realized that, they began taking huge loans to buy more land and equipment

  • to farm more wheat.

  • Which led the real estate prices to grow.

  • That pushed people to buy even more lands hoping to sell it later for a higher price.

  • The same thing was happening to every other industry.

  • In fact, many companies emerged that only existed on paper but didn't even have the

  • equipment or land because everyone was throwing money into the stock market hoping to make

  • a fortune, which further escalated the prices.

  • Would you really stand aside and watch how your neighbors make money while you get nothing.

  • Even foreign countries started investing in the united states hoping to make a buck.

  • I guess you can already see the flow.

  • Many companies were overpriced since most of these investments were based on speculations.

  • Nonetheless, that didn't stop people from investing.

  • People had faith in the economy.

  • When things are good, you start thinking that it's going to be like that forever.

  • What seems so obvious today wasn't obvious then.

  • However, When Europe started recovering, the demand for American goods fell, especially

  • for wheat, since other counties began to grow wheat as well.

  • In August of 1929, France and Italy were bragging of a magnificent harvest, while the US had

  • millions of bushels of wheat on the shelves that they couldn't sell.

  • This oversupply threatened to drive the prices down.

  • It caused a little panic in the stock market but didn't cause anything significant.

  • A month later, the wheat prices decreased from $1.49 per bushel to $1.31 because of

  • the oversupply.

  • It was devastating news, the stock market plummeted.

  • People got frightened and began to sell their stocks to cash out before the stock market

  • declines further.

  • That only made the situation worse crashing the market even more.

  • That day, October 29th went down in history as Black Tuesday.

  • However, that was just the beginning.

  • Since wheat prices were falling, farmers couldn't pay back their debts, that created pressure

  • on the banks.

  • The panic has already spread to the entire country, and all that people cared about was

  • cash, so they rushed to the Banks for their savings.

  • Unfortunately, banks couldn't pay back their obligations since their borrowers weren't

  • able to pay them back their debts so they had to shut down one after one.

  • In just ten months, 744 banks failed.

  • It didn't matter whether you had a good or bad business, people lost faith in the market,

  • and all that mattered was to minimize the losses.

  • As a result of the that, even good legit business started declaring bankruptcy.

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  • The news spread to Europe and caused panic over there since many European countries have

  • invested heavily in the United States.

  • The panic caused the same thing over there, and soon the entire world was facing a great

  • depression.

  • Although this crisis happened almost a hundred years ago, financial crises, in general, are

  • pretty similar, including the dot-com bubble of the 2008 crash.

  • And the next global recession is going to take place in a very similar way.

  • Nobody really knows for sure how and when exactly its going to start but we have multiple

  • bubbles that are big enough to burst at any moment such as student loans, healthcare and

  • most important the stock market itself.

  • circles Since the last crisis, S&P500 has increased

  • dramatically, this growth is definitely unsustainable and when it crashes, it's going to create

  • a panic that's simply going to make things much worst.

  • Graph 3 doors

  • You can't really avoid the recession because the world economy is so interconnected and

  • dependent on each other that a crisis in the largest economy in the world, will take down

  • the rest of the world with it.

  • But the recession isn't going to be forever, it might last a year, maybe two, maybe 5 but

  • eventually it will recover.

  • Just a year after the 2008 crash, in 2009, the sp500 increased by 26.5 percent.

  • So don't panic and sell your investments when the media will be shouting all over the place

  • that if you won't sell now, you are going to lose every damn penny you have invested.

  • Of course, some companies won't survive the crisis and go bankrupt as it happens in every

  • crisis, but if you are an investor in an index fund, you should be fine.

  • You probably will lose your job because companies will start cutting cost in order to survive,

  • so if you are not vital to their survival, you might be unemployed, so make sure you

  • have some savings on the side, at least.

  • But the smartest investors will start investing heavily because prices will be at their lowest

  • point.

  • And once the economy recovers, they will be much wealthier.

  • That's why they say, the rich get richer.

  • The topic of the global recessions never ends, that's, why the media started talking about

  • it even before the last crisis, ended but this video has to.

  • So thanks for watching and until next time.

Its often called the greatest financial crisis in the history of the United States because

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