The Great Depression was horrific for anybody that was involved in it, but are you aware of just how much money was lost on that all important Black Tuesday? You need to remember that we are talking about something that is getting close to 100 years ago, so the amount of money from then would pale into insignificance if you apply today’s current rates.
However, it you forget about that part, then the money that was lost is truly astonishing.
On that one single day, the Wall Street markets lost a staggering $14 billion, and throughout that week they lost a total of $30 billion. Today, we are talking about crazy numbers if you convert that into our current economy and the present-day monetary value of things, as it would be approximately $370 billion. If that kind of thing happened today, we could end up being in another major depression, which is no surprise when the markets basically crashed in a matter of hours.
But then, there are some economists that argue the depression itself was not caused by this crash in the markets. Instead, the blame is put firmly at the feet of the countless individuals that ran to their banks and withdrew their money in a panic. That money drained the banks, meaning they could not rally against the crashes, and what would have been an economic blip turned into something horrific that lasted for years.