Pre Great Depression recession? When was it?

Miscellaneous History
1

Howdy,

I have recently seen scattered references to a nasty recession that occurred before the Great Depression, late 1910’s maybe early 1920’s?? The references noted that this one was perhaps more severe in depth than the Great Depression but the recovery was quicker because the government did nothing to prevent the recovery, unlike the Great Depression. Can someone please shed some light on this or point me to something that discusses it? I have not been able to find anything about it.

2

There were several bank panics in the latter part of the 19th century, but if you’re talking depressions there were three.

1836, 1907 and 1921.

For the 1836 one, try the text or audio file on Mises: “Martin van Buren: What Greatness Really Means”

1907, for conspiracy types, was engineered to start the ball rolling for the Federal Reserve, 16th and 17th Amendments.

1921 was a reaction to the inflation used to fun the First World War.

As a very important point, all three of these were responded to (especially in 1836) by a lack of government intervention. They lasted 6 months to 1 year, and everyone got on with their lives.

It required massive intrusion to cause the Great Depression, specifically the inflation of the 1920s. It took even more massive government intervention to prolong and deepen the depression into 17 years of hell.

3

I’m sorry but this is sort of easy stuff to find out through Google and Wikipedia.

4

Found it. 1920-1921 post WWI under Harding.

5

What about the post Great Depression recessions? Do you think they didn’t last as long due to less government intervention? Are facing a new one because of the bailouts?

6

It is important to realize that while the recoveries of these depressions were swift in their lack of government intervention, it was government intervention in banking and currency that ultimately caused the problems to begin with.

I don’t think the '21-'29 inflation was as large as '00-'05, even though the latter is a shorter period. So yes, we should expect crisis.

7

1921-1929 - 62% increase, 2000 - 2005 - 66% increase.