The Great Depression and the current financial crisis: A comparison

1929 is a year that most of our grandparents or great-grandparents can still recall quite clearly, as it was a year when one of the most noteworthy events occurred in the history of the United States and which affected several other nations on the globe. It was the year the Great Depression began. This disastrous event in our history happened at a time when businesses operated under a laissez-faire regime and markets were independent of government intervention. The inequality of income and wealth increased, and barely any adjustment by the Federal Reserve was made regarding the money supply. Certainly these factors are among the leading causes of the Great Depression. Causes such as false prosperity, the stock market crash, the banking crisis, unemployment and the trade collapse are imperative for understanding such a historical event. False prosperity prior to the Great Depression referred to a false sense of the economy booming.