Precedentthe patterns history keeps Start the walk →
Entry 212 of 240Economic

The Crash of 1929

1929 CE/North America/United States
Today The United States (Wall Street)Span Great Depression · 1929–1939

A decade of giddy speculation, much of it on borrowed money, ended when the American stock market collapsed — and the crash cascaded into the Great Depression, a global slump that threw a quarter of workers out of jobs and fed authoritarian movements around the world. It was mania and debt unwinding at once, the same curve as the 1720 bubbles. And its misery cashed out, again, as a political hunger for strongmen who promised to make it stop.

◆ Worth knowingCounterintuitively, American life expectancy actually rose during the Great Depression — as fewer people could afford to drink, drive, or overwork, the quieter, poorer years proved less deadly than the boom.
◆ The mechanismMania & panic

A speculative belief detaches asset prices from fundamentals; the belief breaks and prices collapse.

Also: Debt / credit cycle · Strongman from disorder

This is one stop on a walk through the whole human story, in order.

Precedent runs from 9500 BCE to the present in 240 short entries, a few a day. Under each one is the mechanism it's an instance of, and every earlier time you've walked past it. Free, no account needed.

Begin at 9500 BCE → Already walking? Open Precedent and you'll pick up where you left off.