Weaknesses beneath the surface of the Roaring Twenties

One of the more careless mistakes that people in general made during the “roaring twenties” was approaching government through passive means. After the “Great War”, no one was really in the mood to deal with government as much as they used to. People started to ignore their government and treat it like it was no longer a very important part of their lives. The lack of interest that people had is quite evident in the quality of the first two presidents during the 1920’s, Harding and Coolidge. They were not the best presidents America had seen in its 150-year history. People had a lower voter turnout in that era than they did during many other voting opportunities, especially considering that women wer

Another of the rather perilous causes of the definitive Great Depression was excessive speculation in the stock market. Mass speculation had been going on throughout the 1920’s, as people bought more and more stock on margin. One example of the reason why people would buy so much on margin is evident in this case with RCA: RCA stock went up from 85 all the way to 420 during 1928. If someone wanted to just put down money for 100 shares and borrow money for 900 more, they would be buying $85000 dollars of RCA, paying only $8500 of it, and their stock would go up to $4.2 million that same year! That is why buying on margin was so perfect for society at that time. However, the problem with this was that there was a certain degree of certainty and confidence that must have been placed in the prosperity of the stock market. When the stocks started to fall slowly since September of 1929, people did not realize just how much trouble they were in. As October 21st came around, it was already way too late to sell all their stocks; people were about to lose everything they had. The mass speculation in the prosperity of the stock market led to the economic downfall in the end. If it was not for this horrendous belief that the stock market was a “sure thing”, then people would have invested smarter and not

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