To this day, economic historians cannot say definitively what caused the Great Crash.
The latest research-—and I reviewed this again for the 15th Anniversary Ed. of Patriot’s History of the United States-—says that the economy was already slowing down 6 months out (true), that the technology of the ticker tape, which ran hours late contributed to the panic (also true-—when the first big drops occurred, brokers and professionals panicked and had no way of knowing if it would correct), that the certainty of the Smoot-Hawley becoming law (key vote the day before) triggered a lot of sell-off (likely), and that companies, seeing Smoot-Hawley coming, began to sell some of their own stock to get liquid (likely).
The market recovered 50% of its loss within a year, but by then Herbert (Mr. Progressive) Hoover had imposed a check tax, further slowing down the economy. And don’t forget, the Fed was squeezing cash out at this very time. The money supply fell by 1/3 from 1929-32, greatly exacerbating the losses.
It was a combo of many things, the Fed and the Government and the panic.......................
Trump isn’t a second Hoover, whatever else is going on.
Before this report, my wife who seldom reads about this, looked at the reports on our IRA’s through April.
In spite of some fairly heavy required minimal monthly withdrawals, (5 withdrawals, YTD, our 3 IRAs are basically ahead of the first of the year.
Then, we got the 1st quarterly report from the those monitoring the retirement benefits and health benefits from the umbrella of several companies covering my retirement. The net $ increase in spite of paying out monthly pensions and health care costs for retirees and active employees was outstanding.
Cue the negative trolls on FR to tell us that this isn’t happening or will stop.