The Great Depression was one of the worst economic downturns in the history of the industrialized world. The economy stumbled, the unemployment rate rose to 25% and many banks failed. Randall Parker’s An Overview of the Great Depression, Michael A. Bernstein’s Why the great Depression was Great, and Thomas Heinrich and Bob Bachelor’s Kimberly Clark discus the great depression with different interpretations. Michael A. Bernstein interpretation of the great depression is that the reason the recession became the great depression was the timing of the collapse. Randal Parker present’s an over view of what caused the great depression and discusses the decrease in consumer spending and investment. Both interpretations of the great depression are persuasive however I believe Bernstein’s does a better job of explaining why the great depression lasted as long as it did. The great depression began with the speculative being popped. The members of the federal reserve were set on popping the speculative bubble they believed was driving the stock market boom in the late…show more content… Michael A. Bernstein discuses the timing of the recession is what caused the depression. He believed that if the recession occurred some time later, the new emerging markets would speed up the recovery from the depression. He argues that if the newer markets weren’t caught in the recession while still in their infancy they would have been able to soften the affect of the crash on the economy. Many of these companies did relatively well during the depression. Sectors such as petroleum, chemicals, electronics, and aviation. Even though these markets were growing the unemployment during the great depression rose to twenty five percent. The sectors were growing while unemployment was rising. The companies that were growing should have been able to hire more people during the
