I simply was wondering if you thought that the crash in U.S. exports was insignificant also.
Yes, again volume only decreased by less than 50% so we are talking about GNP being down 2% due to exports. But GNP was off 46% in industrial production. So exports were not significant.
The drop in exports did get blamed a little for being the straw that broke the camels back with the banking failure. Banks had been weak and growing weaker ever since the stock market crash in '29. Some blamed the failure of loans to exporters for being the final straw. But we didn't have any lender of last resort like the Federal Reserve or any thing to prop up the banks during a liquidity run. A liquidity run started in Europe and quickly spread to the U.S. and the banking system collapsed, taking many businesses down with it. The fact that a small proportion of loans went bad due to the drop in exports was more coincidental than a serious impact.