There are many similarities and differences between the Great Depression and the recession that is now in our country. I have pinpointed three similarities that I find quite interesting and a few differences. I have also found a trend in the success of technology during economically hard times.
The first similarity is the decrease in jobs. Now, the job market is very poor and unemployment has risen to a new high. Yet, luckily the job market seems to be steadily, although very slowly, increasing. Jobs during the time of the Great Depression were also scarce. This was because the stock market crashed and many businesses had much of their money in stocks so they could not afford to keep as many workers as they could before.
The second similarity is the state of the environment at the time. During the Great Depression, many people thought the farmers would be fine because they at least had food to feed themselves but large droughts and dust storms covered the Great Plains killing most of the crops. Today, there are not localized and specific environmental factors that are affecting our economy but global warming and pollution are two environmental factors which are a threat right now.
The final similarity that I found is a little bit of a stretch. World War II was the driving force that ended the Great Depression because it created many jobs throughout the country. Seeing the wars and unrest that is going on around the world now, particularly in the Middle East, World War III might be what takes us out of this recession.
One large difference between this recession and the Great Depression is response time. During the Great Depression when the stock market crashed, the government did not know what to do so they took a very long time to respond. Luckily now, politicians and government officials are continually looking for new ways to solve the problems that our recession has caused. Another possible difference is the banks. The banks crashed because everyone was trying to take out their money when the stock market crashed and they just didn’t have enough money to catch up so many closed. Although banks have had problems with lending out loans now-a-days, at least there isn’t one single event, like the stock market crash, that will cause everyone to want to withdraw all of their money at the same time.
Technology was affected by the Great Depression. Radio, the free technology used as a means of entertainment, flourished. People didn’t have much money to spend on different technologies and this is why free radio flourished. During the recession now, the same thing is happening. People are starting to stop using the technology that costs, such as video games, DVD rentals, Game consoles, etc., and are starting to stick with the free means of entertainment; the internet. If this recession continues, I believe that we may see an end to video games that are not free, we are already seeing an end to DVD rental stores, and I also think in the future, television might start to diminish as well because of sites like hulu that allow you to watch TV shows for free.
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