A new book came out about The Great Depression, and I thought it would be a good time to share my thoughts. As many of you know, The Great Depression started with the stock market crash in 1929 and ended with the US buildup and eventual entry into WWII. Many of the histories of this decade or so put the blame on market speculators, but that is only a small portion of the story. Yes, speculation run rampant may have led to the market correction that is now called a crash, and this crash may have signaled the beginning of The Great Depression, but a lot of questions remain about how severe everything should have been. The US had another major crash in 1989, but it did not lead to a recession so bad we had to give it an adjective like "Great." The difference was in the reaction. FDR was the man back in the day, and after the 1929 crash, he couldn't institute socialist policies fast enough. Had the man taken a more free market, lesseiz faire (probably spelled wrong, it's French, give me a break) attitude, and not tried to control the economy from D.C., the Great Depression might now be known as just another couple of down years in the continuous economic cycle our economy follows. That's the problem with people who have never run a successful business trying to make decisions for all businesses.

Here's a great article that says the same thing, but much better.