La gran depresion en Ingles.

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Later in November, when moods had subsided a little, prices had fallen by half since the stock market crash, and no less than $ 50 billion had vanished like smoke. The insecurity and fragility of financial systems became evident.

The bankruptcy of the New York Stock Exchange was the most dramatic moment of an unprecedented crisis; However, the collapse of Wall Street was not the prologue or the cause of the global economic crisis: it was only its most spectacular symptom. The unplanned excess production and the brutal competition entailed a rapid increase of products that did not find market, along with a monopolistic accumulation of capital in a few hands of large owners - "old age of industry", it was called - , A system of a dangerous concentration of capital.

The first signs of recession were already felt in commodity-producing countries, while Wall Street was still in full euphoria, the first symptom of the lack of vigilance and prevention of changing situations, due to overconfidence. Depression had multiple causes: after a period of strong expansion, there was a crisis of conjuncture and adaptation, which could be said to be "normal", but which broke out with unprecedented violence. In any case, this "normal" crisis to a certain extent was also structural, a result of the war and its dire consequences, such as fiscal pressure, war debts and German reparations.

Rationalization and new industrial and agricultural techniques also contributed to the crisis. The increase in production per hour worked, without increasing labor, is beneficial to the industry, but not in all circumstances. Too rapid a rate of expansion leads to difficulties of transition and adaptation. Rationalization of labor suppresses jobs, and jobs available to other sectors of production, because of unemployment, can not always be adapted quickly enough; Therefore, this problem of readaptation provokes, in most of the countries, a major bache just after the period of high conjuncture. Apart from this, the internal difficulties and the instability of world politics prevented the elaboration of any long-term planning.

The American bankruptcy was not in its beginnings but a stock market crash, the sudden outburst and collapse of a myth created by speculators; Nevertheless, its consequences were deep and lasting. People ruined by the collapse of the stock market limited their spending, those fortunate who still had some capital were frightened and refused to invest again, and sources of credit were exhausted. The consequences of this were generally fatal for Europe, and in particular for the German economy, which depended almost entirely on short-term loans from the United States.