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Definition: Great Depression |
Great DepressionNoun1. The economic crisis beginning with the stock market crash in 1929 and continuing through the 1930s. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
| Domain | Definitions |
Economics | The world-wide economic hard times generally regarded as having begun with the stock market collapse of Oct. 28-29, 1929 and continued through most of the 1930s. Source: European Union. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
The Great Depression is the period of history that followed "Black Thursday", the stock market crash of Thursday, October 24, 1929 (the actual panic did not begin in earnest until Black Tuesday on October 29). The events in the United States triggered a world-wide depression, which led to deflation and a great increase in unemployment. On the global scale, the market crash in the US was a final straw in an already shaky world economic situation. Germany was suffering from hyperinflation of currency, and many of the Allied victors of World War I were having serious problems paying off huge war debts. In the late 1920s the American economy at first seemed immune to the mounting troubles, but with the start of the 1930s it crashed with startling rapidity.
There is much disagreement about the primary causes of the great depression.
International finance never recovered from the strains of World War I, which caused a dramatic increase in productivity capacity, particularly outside Europe, without a corresponding increase in sustained demand. Fixed exchange rates and free convertibility gave way to a compromise—the Gold Exchange Standard—that lacked the stability to rebuild world trade.
In 1929 the world's most prosperous nation was the United States. But despite the confidence in the United States and the apparent economic well-being in other countries, the world economy was in an unhealthy state. One by one, the pillars of the prewar economic system—multilateral trade, the gold standard, and the interchangeability of currencies—were crumbling.
The US economy had thus been showing some signs of distress for months before October 1929. Commodity prices had been falling worldwide since 1926, reducing the capacity of exporters in the peripheral, undeveloped economies of Latin America, Asia, and Africa to buy products from the core industrial countries, such as the United States and Britain. Business inventories of all types were three times as large as they had been a year before (an indication that the public was not buying products as rapidly as in the past); and other signposts of economic health—freight carloads, industrial production, wholesale prices—were slipping downward.
A fundamental misdistribution of purchasing power, the greatly unequal distribution of wealth throughout the 1920s, was a factor contributing to the depression. Wages increased at a rate that was a fraction of the rate at which productivity increased. As production costs fell quickly, wages rose slowly, and prices remained constant, the bulk benefit of the increased productivity went into profits. As industrial and agricultural production increased, the proportion of the profits going to farmers, factory workers, and other potential consumers was far too small to create a market for goods that they were producing. Even in 1929, after nearly a decade of economic growth, more than half the families in America lived on the edge or below the subsistence level-too poor to share in the great consumer boom of the 1920s, too poor to buy the cars and houses and other goods the industrial economy was producing, too poor in many cases to buy even the adequate food and shelter for themselves. As long as corporations had continue to expand their capital facilities (their factories, warehouses, heavy equipment, and other investments), the economy had flourished. And thanks to pressure from the Coolidge administration and the business, the Federal Reserve Board kept the rediscount rate low, encouraging excessive investment. By the end of the 1920s, however, capital investments had created more plant space than could be profitably used, and factories were pouring out more goods than consumers could purchase.
Another factor was the serious lack of diversification in the American economy of the 1920s. Prosperity had been excessively dependent on a few basic industries, notably construction and automobiles; in the late 1920s, those industries began to decline. Between 1926 and 1929, expenditures on construction fell from $11 billion to under $9 billion. Automobile sales began to decline somewhat later, but in the first nine months of 1929 they declined by more than one third. Once these two crucial industries began to weaken, there was not enough strength in other sectors of the economy to take up the slack. Even before, while the automotive industry was thriving in the 1920s some industries, agriculture in particular, were declining steadily. While the Ford Motor Company was reporting record assets, farm prices plummeted, and the price of food fell precipitously. Also prospering during the 1920s were businesses dependent upon the radio industry.
During World War I many nations of Europe abandoned the gold standard in an attempt to use inflationary policies to fund government expenditure. This had a number of economic consequences in its own right. However what is of particular relevance is that following the War most nations returned to the gold standard at the pre-war gold price. Monetary policy was in effect put into a deflationary setting that would over the next decade slowly grind away at the viability of may European enterprices. Modern advocates of the gold standard such as proponents of supply-side economics maintain that the correct policy response following World War I would have been to return to the gold standard at the prevailing market price of gold rather than at the pre-war price.
Deflationary impact particularly harshly on sectors of the economy that are in debt. One typical group that is adversely effected is the farm sector. Deflation erodes the price of commodites while increasing the real value of debt.
It should be noted however that deflationary forces alone do not fully account for the great depression and must be considered in the context of other political factors.
As farm prices plummeted, farmers were deeply in debt;their land mortgaged, and crop prices too low to allow them to pay off what they owed. Small banks, especially those tied to the agricultural economy, were in constant crisis in the 1920s as their customers defaulted on loans; there was a steady stream of failures among these smaller banks throughout the decade.
Although most American bankers in this era were staunchly conservative, some of the nation's largest banks were failing to maintain adequate reserves and were investing recklessly in the stock market or making unwise loans. In other words, the banking system was not well prepared to absorb the shock of a major recession. The banking system as a whole, moreover, was only very loosely regulated by the Federal Reserve System.
Another factor was America's position in international trade. Protectionist impulses would drive nations to protect domestic production against competition from foreign imports by erecting high tariff walls. President Herbert Hoover and the Republican Congress managed to do just this when they enacted the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act of June 1930 which raised American tariffs to unprecedented levels. It practically closed U.S. borders and, with retaliatory tariffs from US trading partners, caused the immediate collapse of the most important export industry, American agriculture. American foreign trade seriously declined, and the volume of world trade steadily decreased.
Prior to the Great Depression a petition signed by over 1000 economists was presented to the US government warning that the Hawley-Smoot Tariff act would bring diasterous economic repercussions, however this did not stop the act being signed into law.
Beginning late in the decade, European demand for US goods began to decline. That was partly because European industry and agriculture were becoming more productive, and partly because some European nations (most notably Germany, under the government of the Weimar Republic) were suffering serious financial crises and could not afford to buy goods overseas. But it was because the European economy was being destabilized by the international debt structure that had emerged in the aftermath of World War I.
Thus, the international debt structure was a major contributing factor to the Depression. When the war came to an end in 1918, all European nations that had been allied with the United States owed large sums of money to American banks, sums much too large to be repaid out of their shattered economies. That was one reason why the Allies had insisted (to the consternation of the perhaps historically vindicated Woodrow Wilson) on demanding reparation payments from Germany and Austria. Reparations, they believed, would provide them with a way to pay off their own debts. But Germany and Austria were themselves in deep economic trouble after the war; they were no more able to pay the reparations than the Allies were able to pay their debts.
The debtor nations put strong pressure on the United States in the 1920s to forgive the debts, or at least reduce them. The American government refused. Instead, US banks began making large loans to the nations of Europe. Thus debts (and reparations) were being paid only by augmenting old debts and piling up new ones. In the late 1920s, and particularly after the American economy began to weaken after 1929, the European nations found it much more difficult to borrow money from the United States. At the same time, high US tariffs were making it much more difficult for them to sell their goods in US markets. Without any source of revenues from foreign exchange with which to repay their loans, they began to default.
The high tariff walls critically impeded the payment of war debts. As a result of high US tariffs, only a sort of cycle kept the reparations and war-debt payments going. During the 1920s the former allies paid the war-debt installments to the United States chiefly with funds obtained from German reparations payments, and Germany was able to make those payments only because of large private loans from the United States and Britain. Similarly, US investments abroad provided the dollars, which alone made it possible for foreign nations to buy US exports.
By 1931 the world was reeling from the worst depression of all time, and the entire structure of reparations and war debts collapsed.
In the scramble for liquidity that followed the Great Crash, funds flowed backed from Europe to America and Europe's fragile economies crumbled.
The Wall Street crash had ushered in a world-wide financial crisis. In the United States between 1929 and 1933 unemployment soared from 3 percent of the workforce to 25 percent, while manufacturing output collapsed by one-third. Governments worldwide sought economic recovery by adopting restrictive autarkic policies (high tariffs, import quotas, and barter agreements) and by experimenting with new plans for their internal economies.
Observers throughout the world saw in the massive program of economic planning and state ownership of the Soviet Union what appeared to be a depression-proof economic system and a solution to the crisis in capitalism.
In Germany unemployment increased drastically, fuelling widespread disillusionment and anger. The institutions of the Weimar Republic, which had been standing on shaky grounds already before, started cracking in the years from 1930 to 1932 while Chancellor and finance expert Heinrich Brüning was trying to fix the economy by drastically cutting state spending. At the time, the NSDAP gained much popularity, winning the two general elections in 1932, which eventually led to the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor on January 30, 1933. (See Weimar Republic for details.) In Nazi Germany economic recovery was pursued through rearmament, conscription, and public works programs. In Mussolini's Italy the economic controls of his corporate state were tightened.
Britain The Labour government of Ramsay MacDonald, and later the Conservative dominated "National Government" responded to the depression by imposing tarifs on all imports except from the British Empire (which arguably worsened the global situation), cutting public spending, and abandoning the Gold Standard which reduced the cost of British exports. (see Great Depression in the United Kingdom).
In the United States, Herbert Hoover was the president, and he tried to control the situation, however, he helped little and in fact at first gravely underestimated the situation (even announcing to Congress on December 3, 1929 that the worst effects of the recent stock market crash were behind his nation and the American people had regained faith in the economy). Realizing his mistake, Hoover went before Congress again on December 2, 1930 and asked for a US$150 million public works program to help generate jobs and stimulate the economy. However, one of the major problems was that with deflation, the currency that you kept in your pocket could buy more goods as the prices went down. The other was that there had been no oversight in the stock market or other investments, and with the collapse, many of the stock and investment schemes were found to be either insolvent, or outright frauds. Unfortunately, many banks had invested in these schemes, and this precipitated a collapse of the banking system in 1932. With the banking system in shambles, and people holding on to whatever currency that they had, there was minimal cash available for any activities that would cause positive change.
The response of the Hoover administration helped little, instead of increasing the money supply, the Hoover administration did the exact opposite and raised interest rates, falsely believing that Inflation was the real danger. Many in the Hoover administration, believed that as wages fell, the cost of production would drop, and as a result production would pick up again, and the depression would be self correcting. For this reason they saw no need for the government to intervene in the economy, a policy which proved disastrous.
Like their counterparts abroad, many Americans were disillusioned with their system of government, believing that Hoover's policies had driven the country to ruin. (Shantytowns populated by unemployed people at the time were often dubbed "Hoovervilles" to highlight the President's fading popularity). During this period, several alternative and fringe political movements saw a considerable increase in membership. In particular, a number of high-profile figures embraced the ideals of Communism, though this would subsequently be used against them during the Red Scare of the 1950s. Radio speakers such as Father Charles Coughlin saw their listening audiences swell into the millions, as they sought for (and often found) easy scapegoats to blame the country's woes upon.
Upon accepting Democratic nomination for president (July 2, 1932), Roosevelt promised "a new deal for the American people," a phrase that has endured as a label for his administration and its many domestic achievements.
For details, see the main New Deal article.
But it was not until the US entered World War II, however, did Roosevelt try idea of massive public expenditures and deficit spending on a scale necessary to pull the nation out of the Great Depression; Roosevelt, of course, had little choice now. Even granted the special circumstances of war mobilization, it seemed to work exactly as Keynes predicted, winning over many Republicans even. When the Great Depression was brought to an end by the Second World War, business had been reinforced by government expenditures.
New Deal programs sought to stimulate demand and provide work and relief for the impoverished through increased government spending, baked up later by the British economist John Maynard Keynes. In 1929 federal expenditures were only 3 percent of GDP. Between 1933 and 1939, federal expenditure tripled, and Roosevelt's critics charged that he was turning America into a socialist state. However, spending on the New Deal was far smaller than on the war effort. In the first peacetime year of 1946, federal spending still amounted to $62 billion, or 30 percent of GDP. In short, federal expenditures went from 3 percent of GDP in 1929 to about a third in 1945. The big surprise was just how productive America became: spending financially cured the depression. Between 1939 and 1944 (the peak of wartime production), the nation's output almost doubled. Consequently, unemployment plummeted—from 14 percent in 1940 to less than 2 percent in 1943 as the labor force grew by ten million. The war economy was not so much a triumph of free enterprise as the result of government/business sectionalism, of government bankrolling business. While unemployment remained high throughout the New Deal years; consumption, investment, and net exports—the pillars of economic growth—remained low. It was World War II, not the New Deal, which finally ended the crisis. Nor did the New Deal substantially alter the distribution of power within American capitalism; and it had only a small impact on the distribution of wealth among the population.
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
The World Depression of 1929-33 broke at a time when the United Kingdom was still far from having recovered from the effects of the First World War more than a decade earlier.
A major cause of the international financial instability which preceded and accompanied the Great Depression was the debt which many European countries had accumulated to pay for their involvement in the war. This debt destabilised many European economies as they tried to rebuild during the 1920s.
Britain had largely avoided this trap by financing her war effort largely through sales of foreign assets. Along with loss of assets through enemy action, such divestiture reduced British investments abroad by around 20% by 1918.
The resulting loss of foreign earnings left the British economy more dependent upon exports, and more vulnerable to any downturn in world markets. But the war had permanently eroded Britain's trading position in world markets through disruptions to trade and losses of shipping. Overseas customers for British produce had been lost, especially in traditional industries such as textiles, steel and coalmining.
The 1920s saw the development of new industries such as the motor industry, and the electrical industry, but British products in these fields were not usually sufficiently advanced to compete in world markets against foreign competitors possessing more up-to-date plant, and so British products largely served the domestic market.
The traditional industries which formed the bedrock of Britain's export trade (such as coalmining, shipbuilding and steel) were heavily concentrated in certain areas of Britain, such as the north of England south Wales and central Scotland, while the newer industries were heavily concentrated in southern and central England.
Altogether, British industrial output during the 1920s ran at about 80-100%, and exports at about 80%, of their pre-war levels, so there was little chance of Britain being able to amass enough capital to restore her overseas investment position.
From about 1921 Britain had started a slow economic recovery from the war and the subsequent slump. But in April 1925 the Conservative Chancellor, Winston Churchill, on advice from the Bank of England, restored the pound to the gold standard at its prewar exchange rate of 4.86 US dollars.
This made the pound convertible to its value in gold, but at a level which made British exports more expensive on world markets. The economic recovery was immediately slowed. To offset the effects of the high exchange rate, the export industries tried to cut costs by lowering workers' wages, provoking the General Strike of May 1926.
The traditional industrial areas of Britain spent the rest of the 1920s in recession, and these industries received little investment or modernisation. Throughout the 1920s the unemployment rate stayed at a steady one million.
In May 1929 a minority Labour government headed by Ramsay MacDonald came to office with Liberal support. This was only the second time a Labour government had been in office (they had briefly been in office in 1924), and few of the government's members had any deep knowledge of economics or experience of running the economy. MacDonald's Labour Party was not radical in economic thinking, and was wedded to the orthodoxy of Victorian classical economics, with its emphasis on maintaining a balanced budget at any cost.
In October 1929 the Wall Street Crash in New York heralded the Great Depression. The ensuing US economic collapse caused a ripple effect across the world. World trade contracted, prices fell and governments faced financial crisis as the supply of American credit dried up. Many countries adopted an emergency response to the crisis by erecting trade barriers and tariffs, which worsened the crisis by further hindering global trade.
The effects on the industrial areas of Britain were immediate and devastating, as demand for British products collapsed. By the end of 1930 unemployment had more than doubled from 1 million to 2.5 million (20% of the insured workforce), and exports had fallen in value by 50%. Government revenues contracted as national income fell, while the cost of assisting the jobless rose.
Under pressure from its Liberal allies as well as the Conservative opposition, the Labour government appointed a committee to review the state of public finances. The May Report of July 1931 urged public-sector wage cuts and large cuts in public spending (notably in payments to the unemployed) to avoid incurring a budget deficit.
This proposal proved deeply unpopular within the Labour Party and among its main supporters, the trade unions, which along with several government ministers refused to support any such measures. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Snowden, insisted that the Report's recommendations must be adopted to avoid incurring a budget deficit.
In a memorandum in January 1930, one junior government minister, Oswald Mosley, proposed that the government should take control of banking and exports, as well as increase pensions to boost purchasing power. When his ideas were turned down, he resigned. He soon left Labour to form the New Party, and later the British Union of Fascists.
The approach of the British Labour Party to the economic crisis was in stark contrast to that adopted in Sweden by the Swedish Social Democratic Party, which took a Keynesian approach to the crisis, and initiated government-funded public works programmes to ease unemployment and boost the economy.
The dispute over spending and wage cuts split the Labour government: as it turned out, fatally. And the resulting political deadlock caused investors to take fright, and a flight of capital and gold further de-stabilised the economy. In response MacDonald, who on the urging of King George V, decided to form a coalition with the Conservatives and the Liberals.
On August 24 MacDonald submitted the resignation of his ministers and led his senior colleagues in forming a "National Government", with the other parties. MacDonald and his supporters were expelled from the Labour Party and adopted the label "National Labour". The Labour Party and some Liberals, led by David Lloyd George, went into opposition. The Labour Party denounced MacDonald as a "traitor" and a "rat" for what they saw as his betrayal.
Soon after this, a General Election was called. The election resulted in a Conservative landslide victory, with the now leaderless Labour Party winning only 46 seats in Parliament. Although MacDonald continued as Prime Minister until 1935, after the 1931 election the national government was Conservative dominated.
The new national government, with the Conservative Neville Chamberlain as Chancellor, immediatly instituted a draconian round of public spending and wage cuts. Public sector wages and unemployment pay were cut by 10%, and income tax was raised from 22.5 pence to 25 pence in the pound. But these measures merely reduced purchasing power in the economy, and worsened the situation, and by the end of 1931 unemployment had reached 3 million.
Because of the gold standard there was nothing to stop a flight of gold. At first the government tried to stop the flight by introducing punitive interest rates. But in late 1931 the government was finally forced to abandon the gold standard, and immediatly the exchange rate of the pound fell by 25%, from $4.86 to $3.40. This eased the pressure on exporters, and layed the ground for a gradual economic recovery. Also in 1932 Chamberlain introduced tarriffs on imports at a rate of 10% on all imports except those from the countries of the British Empire.
Although the overall picture for the British economy in the 1930s was bleak, the effects of the depression were uneven. Some parts of the country, and some industries, fared better than others. Some parts of the country, such as south Wales, experienced mass unemployment and poverty, while some areas in the south did not.
Although in London and the south east of England unemployment was initially as high as 15%, the later 1930s were a prosperous time in these areas, as a house building boom was fuelled by the low interest rates which followed the abolition of the gold standard, and as London's growing population buoyed up the economy of the south east.
The south was also the home of new developing industries such as the electrical industry, which prospered from the large-scale electrification of housing and industry. Mass production methods brought new products such as electrical cookers, washing machines and radios into the reach of the middle classes, and the industries which produced these prospered.
Another industry which prospered during the 1930s was the motor industry. For cities which had a developed motor industry such as Birmingham, Coventry and Oxford, the 1930s were a boom time. Manufacturers such as Austin, Morris and Ford dominated the motor industry during the 1930s, and the number of cars on British roads doubled within the decade. Agriculture also flourished in the 1930s.
The north of England however was a quite different matter. The north of England was the home of most of the Britain's traditional industries auch as coalmining, shipbuilding, steel and textiles. The north bore the brunt of the depression, and the '30s were the most difficult time in living memory for people in these areas.
In the north east (the areas around Newcastle-upon-Tyne) this was especially so. The north east was traditionally a major centre of the shipbuilding industry. The Depression caused a collapse in demand for ships. Between 1929 and 1932 ship production declined by 90%, and this in turn affected all the supply industries such as steel and coal. In some towns and cities in the north east, unemployment reached as high as 70%. Among the worst affected towns was Jarrow, where unemployment led to the famous Jarrow March, in which unemployed workers marched 300 miles to London to protest against unemployment.
The north west a traditional centre of the textile industries, was also hard hit, with places such as Manchester and Lancashire suffering a slump. South Wales, a centre of the coalmining and steel industries, was also devastated by the depression. Towns such as Merthyr Tydfil and Swansea had unemployment rates reaching above 25% at certain times. The industrial belt of central Scotland also a major shipbuilding centre was also hard hit by the slump.
In these areas millions of unemployed and their families were left destitute, and queueing at soup kitchens became a way of life. A government report in the mid 1930s estimated that around 25% of the UK's population existed on a subsistance diet. In his book The Road to Wigan Pier, George Orwell described life for the unemployed in northern England during the depression: "Several hundred men risk their lives and several hundred women scrabble in the mud for hours... searching eagerly for tiny chips of coal in slagheaps so they could heat their homes. For them, this arduously-gained 'free' coal was more important almost than food."
In the 1930s Britain had a relatively advanced welfare system compared to many othe industrialised countries. In 1911 a compulsary national unemployment and health insurance scheme had been put in place by the Liberal government of David Lloyd George. This scheme had been funded through equal contributions from the government, the employers and the workers. At first the scheme only applied to certain trades but it was gradually expanded in the 1920s.
But the scheme only payed out according to the level of contributions rather than according to need, and was only payable for 26 weeks. Anyone unemployed for longer than that had to rely on relief payed by their local authority. In effect, millions of workers who had been too poorly paid to make contributions, or who had been unemployed, were left destitute by the scheme. With the mass unemployment of the 1930s, contributions to the insurance scheme dried up, which resulted in a funding crisis.
In 1934 the 1911 scheme was replaced by a fully government-funded unemployment benefit system. This system for the first time payed out according to need rather than the level of contributions. But the unemployment pay was subject to a strict means test, and anyone applying for unemployment pay had to endure an inspection by a government official to make sure that they had no hidden earnings or savings. For many poor people this was a humiliating experience and was much resented.
Following Britain's withdrawal from the gold standard and the devaluation of the pound, interest rates were reduced from 6% to 2%. As a result British exports became more competitive on world markets than those of countries which remained on the gold standard. This led to a modest economic recovery, and a fall in unemployment from 1933 onwards. Although exports were still a fraction of their pre-depression levels, they staged a modest recovery.
Unemployment began a modest fall in 1934 and fell further in 1935 and 1936. But the rise in employment levels occurred mostly in the south, where lower interest rates had spurred a house building boom, which in turn spurred a recovery in domestic industry. The north remained severely depressed for most of the decade.
In severely depressed parts of the country the government enacted a number of policies to stimulte growth and reduce unemployment, including road building, loans to shipyards and tarrifs on steel imports. These policies helped but were not however on a sufficiently large scale to make a huge impact on the unemployment levels.Causes of the Great Depression
A misdistribution of purchasing power
A lack of diversification
Post World War I Deflationary Pressures
The credit structure
The breakdown of international trade
Responses
The "New Deal," World War II and the end of the Great Depression in the United States
External Links
See Also
Great Depression in the United Kingdom
Background
The Gold Standard
Economic Crisis and the Labour government 1929-1931
The National Government
Emergency measures
Britain in the 1930s: a nation divided
The South and the Midlands
The north and other industrial areas
The welfare state during the 1930s
Slow recovery
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Great Depression."
Crosswords: Great Depression |
| English words defined with "Great Depression": basin ♦ FDR, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt ♦ Pitch farthing, President Franklin Roosevelt, President Roosevelt ♦ Roosevelt ♦ Sordes ♦ the Great Depression. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "Great Depression": Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 ♦ Black Thursday ♦ Tariff Act of 1930. (references) |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit |  | Perspective view from southwest. Photograph by Jet Lowe, summer 1990. (Reproduction Number: HAER ORE,6-NOBE,1-10) At 5,305 feet in length, the Coos Bay Bridge is the longest of the five Public Works Administration bridges built along the Oregon Coastal Highway during the Great Depression. Made of steel, the bridge incorporates many complex structural systems and technological innovations including cantilevers, trusses, and early examples of concrete arches. Motorists feel as though they are driving under a series of arches when they travel over the bridge. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Economic History | Qatar | With the Great Depression and the introduction of Japan's cultured-pearl industry, pearling in Qatar declined drastically. (references) |
Colombia | The economy slowed, and by 1998 GDP growth was only 0.6%. In 1999, the country fell into its first recession since the Great Depression. (references) | |
Estonia | However, with nine to 14 politically divergent parties, Estonia experienced 20 different parliamentary governments between 1919 and 1933. The Great Depression spawned the growth of powerful, far-rightist parties which successfully pushed popular support in 1933 for a new constitution granting much stronger executive powers. (references) | |
Political Economy | Argentina | Protectionist barriers introduced by its main trading partners following the onset of the Great Depression in 1929 closed many of Argentina's most lucrative export markets and contributed to a serious economic decline in the country. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| Speaker | Phrase(s) |
Rush Limbaugh | The Democrats are already on record saying that we're in the midst of the steepest decline in the NASDAQ since the Great Depression, which, of course, is a flat-out lie. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Speaker | Term | Phrase(s) |
John F. Kennedy | 1961-1963 | Business bankruptcies have reached their highest level since the Great Depression. |
Bill Clinton | 1993-2001 | To Franklin Roosevelt, to fight the failure and pain of the Great Depression, and to win our country's great struggle against fascism. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Expression using "Great Depression": the Great Depression. Additional references. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "Great Depression"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||
Danish | den meget kraftige lavkonkunktur i USA i begyndelsen af 1930'erne. (various references) | ||||||||||
Dutch | Grote Depressie. (various references) | ||||||||||
Finnish | suuri lama. (various references) | ||||||||||
German | Weltwirtschaftskrise. (various references) | ||||||||||
Italian | grande depressione. (various references) | ||||||||||
Pig Latin | eatgray epressionday Gran Depresión. (various references) | ||||||||||
Misspellings | |
"Great Depression" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: great depretion. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-d-e-e-e-g-i-n-o-p-r-r-s-s-t" | |
-2 letters: predesignates. | |
-3 letters: derepressing, derepression, desperations, interspersed, paedogenesis, peregrinated, peregrinates, petrogenesis, predesignate. | |
-4 letters: denigrators, designators, desperation, enregisters, enterprises, intergrades, interposers, interrogees, intersperse, pederasties, pedestrians, pedogenesis, peregrinate, preassigned, predestines, prestorages, proteinases, reasserting, reassertion, reassorting, reoperating, rerepeating, respreading, retiredness, rinderpests, sergeanties, topdressing. | |
-5 letters: adroitness, degreasers, denigrates, denigrator, depressant, depressing, depression, desertions, designates, designator, despairers, diageneses, dispersant, dreariness. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)47 72 65 61 74 44 65 70 72 65 73 73 69 6F 6E |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01000111 01110010 01100101 01100001 01110100 00100000 01000100 01100101 01110000 01110010 01100101 01110011 01110011 01101001 01101111 01101110 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)G r e a t   D e p r e s s i o n |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0047 0072 0065 0061 0074 0044 0065 0070 0072 0065 0073 0073 0069 006F 006E |
Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)4184716786238718284718585758180 |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Modern 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Photo Album 6. Quotations: Non-fiction 7. Quotations: Spoken 8. Quotations: Speeches | 9. Expressions 10. Expressions: Internet 11. Translations: Modern 12. Derivations | 13. Anagrams 14. Orthography 15. Bibliography |
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| Note to the press & webmasters - this dictionary can be linked, indexed, or referred to using the following non-English expressions: woordeboek, fjalor, معجم, قاموس, diccionariu, речник, diccionari, diksyonario, diksinario, 字典, gérlyver, slovník, ordbog, woordenboek, shimiyuc p'anca, orðabók, orðbók, dictionnaire, wurdboek, wörterbuch, λεξικό, אוצר מילים, szótár, uqausiit tukingit, dizionario, 字引 , じい, じびき, じて", ディクショナリー , じり", じしょ, '"かい, ディクショナリ , 사 , dizionari, recnik, fockleyr, dikshonario, słownik, dicionário, dicţionar, dicziunari, словарь, lolomi fefiloi, foclair, abardair, faclair, briathrachan, pukuntau, leksikon, rečnik, vocabbulariu, diccionario, sí-chazamagâma, ordbok, lexikon, พจนานุกรม, sözlük, ansiklopedik sözlük, словник, довідник, có tính chất sách vở, geirlyfr, geiriadur, for dictionary; definisie, qartësi, përcaktim, saktësi, الوضوحية في الشيء, حد, تحديد, تعريف, التحديد, الإيضاحية, яснота, сила, очертания, дефиниция, 定義 , 定义, definice, deskriptordefinition, definitie, määritelmä, définition, ορισμός, "'"ר", "'בל", meghatározás, definíció, definizione, 確定 , ディーゼル電気車 , デ'ドロ酢酸 , デフィニション , ディフィニション , ていぎ, かくてい, 의, geyrid, meenaghey, keeayllaght, baght, definishon, definição, definiţie, determinare, definire, определение, definicija, definición, definition, açıklama, belirleme, belirtme, kesinleştirme, tanım, tarif, seçiklik, tanımlama, чіткість, тлумачення, виразність, визначення, дефініція, ясність, чітка чутність, sự định rõ, sự định nghĩa, lời định nghĩa sự định, diffiniad, darnodiad, for definition; vertaling, transferim, transmetim, ترجمة من لغة أجنبية للغة الأم, ترجمة, إفتتان, транслация, огъване, превод, предаване, поддаване, тълкуване, превеждане, 翻译, překlad, oversættelse, translatie, taajuusmuutos, translaatio, traduction, oersetting, Übersetzung, μετάφραση, תור'מ ות, תר'ום, "עתק", "עתק, fordítás, traduzione, 翻訳 , へい"ういどう, やくしょ, やくしゅつ, "うどく, ほ"やく, トランスレーション , やくじゅつ, ほ"やくしょ, 번역, tradukshon, tradução, translaţie, tãlmãcire, traducere, сдвиг, трансляция, перемещение, перевод, tumačenje, traducción, översättning, tercüme, процес перекладу, переклад, пояснення, переміщення, sự dịch, sự biến th nh sự giải thích, trosiad, for translation; Deens, danisht, danishte, لغة الدانمركية, نوع كعك, دانماركي, датски език, датски, Daniko, 丹麦语, dánský, dánština, danskur, danskt, tanskalainen, danois, Deensk, dänisch, δανικόσ, δανόσ, עו'ת שמרים, " י, dán, danska, Danmhairgis, danese, 덴마크, Danvargish, Danvargagh, danes, dinamarquês, danez, датский, danski, danski jezik, danés, dansk, danimarkalı, danimarka dili, датський, датська мова, tiếng Đan-mạch, for Danish; Nederlands, Hollands, holandez, هولندي, اللغة الهولندية, холандски, немски език, холандски език, холандците, немски, Olandes, 菏蘭語 , 荷兰语, holandský, nizozemský, hollandsk, hollendskt, hollantilainen, néerlandais, Nederlânsk, holländisch, ολλανδικόσ, ολλανδόσ, holandisht, "ול "י, holland, hollenskur, Ollainnis, olandese, 네덜란", Belanda, Ollanish, Germaanish, Tatimana, nederlandsk, ulandes, hulandes, holandês, neerlandés, olandez, nemţesc, limba olandezã, german, голландский, holanđanin, u škripcu, holandski, holandés, bakratongo, holländsk, ชาวเนเธอร์แลน"์, เกี่ยวกับเนเธอร์แลน"์, รรยา, alman, eş, flemenkçe, holandaca, hollanda, karı, hollandalı, hollandalılara özgü olan, Hollandali, hollanda'ya ait, голландська мова, голландський, ngôn ngữ khó hiểu, "b xã", for Dutch; Fins, finlandez, finlandishte, finlandisht, اللغة الفنلندية, فنلندية, فنلندي, фински език, фински, Pinlandino, 芬蘭語 , 芬兰语, finský, finskt, suomi, suomalainen, finnois, Finlandaise, finlandais, finnisch, φινλανδικόσ, פי י, finn, finnskur, finnska, finlandese, 핀란", Fynlannish, Fynlannagh, finlandês, finês, finlandezã, финский, Finisi, finski jezik, finski, finlandés, finés, finsk, fince, finlandiya'ya özgü, фінська мова, фінський, tiếng Phần-lan, for Finnish; Duits, Duitser, Duitse taal, Germaan, gjerman, ضرب من الرقص, جرماني, المانية, الماني, اللغة الألمانية, роден, германски, немски език, немски, немец, готически, германец, 德語 , 德语, 德文 , 德國 , nìmecký, nìmec, tysker, Duitse, týskur, týskt, týskari, saksalainen, Allemand, Dútsk, Deutsche, Deutsch, "ερμανός, gjermanisht, 'רמ י, 'רמ ית, német, þjóðverji, þýskur, GearmÚnach, GearmÚinis, tedesco, ジプシー音楽 , ジャーマン , 독일, todesch, Germaanagh, Garmane, Germaanish, Carmane, aleman, Niemiec, niemiecki, alemão, alemand, neamţ, немецкий, Siamani, germanski, alemán, Tudesku, Doysri, mjeremani, mdachi, sí-Jalimáne, tysk, เยอรมัน, าษาเยอรมัน, Alman, німкеня, німецький, німець, $sisters german$ chị em ruột, $cousin german$ anh chị em con chú bác ruột, sister, Almaenwr, isiJalimane, iliJalimane, iJalimane, for German; Italianer, Italiaans, Italiaan, شخص إيطالي, اللغة الإيطالية, الإيطالي, إيطالي, Italianu, италиански език, италиански, италианец, Italyano, 意大利 , 意大利語 , 意大利语, italština, italský, ital, italiener, italienskt, italialainen, Italien, Italjaansk, italienisch, Ιταλός, italisht, איטלקי, איטלקית, olasz, Ítali, IodÚilis, italiano, 이탈리아, Iddaalish, Włoch, italianã, italienesc, italieneşte, italian, итальянский язык, итальянский, итальянец, Italia, italijanski, italijanski jezik, italijan, sí-Taliyáne, italienare, italiensk, italienska, เกี่ยวกับอิตาลี, ชาวอิตาลี, าษาอิตาลี, italyanca, italyan, італі"ць, італійська мова, італійський, італійка, for Italian; Spaans, Spaanse taal, spanjoll, اللغة الأسبانية, الأسبانية, أسباني, испански език, испански, espanyoles, Espanyol, 西班牙语, 西班牙文 , 西班牙語 , španìlský, španìlština, spanskt, espanjalainen, espagnol, Spaansk, spanisch, ισπανικά, ισπανικόσ, ισπανοί, karaiñe'êmegua, ספר"ית, ספר"י, spanyol, SpÚinnis, spagnolo, スペイン語 , スパイ罪 , スペイン", スパニッシュ , 스페인, Spaainagh, Spaainish, spañó, espanhol, espanhòl, spaniolesc, spanioleşte, spaniol, испанский, Sipaniolo, španski jezik, španski, español, spanska språk, spansk, ispanyollar, ispanyolca, ispanyol, іспанська мова, іспанський, for Spanish; |
