The Rise of the Rich and the Famous

"Every free-born American has a right to name his own necessities." That quote represents the sprit of the 1920's. If you want it, go and buy it - you deserve it because you are an American. The economy of the United States was booming. Production was soring. Spending was high. The future looked bright from an American's perspective at the time.

There were some technological advancements that aided the high demand of the 20's. Ford created the moving assembly line which enabled them to mass produce their Model-T.... you know, that ugly black car that you see out of your U.S. History textbook and thank the heavens that you drive something a bit more classier.

By the end of the 1920's 1 out of 6 American's drove a car, which was enough to fit the entire nation in an automobile and send them down the highway. As spending skyrocketed, so did the debt of the people. Because people thought that the future was bright, they started to buy luxuary goods by financing it with debt. GMC started to sell cars on high interest loans. This enabled more and more people who couldn't not normally afford a car to buy one on credit, and pay back the debt later... or at least attempt to.

The Stock Market was also a driver of the economy. People would invest large amount of money in it because they watched it rise, and rise, and rise. There wasn't much regulation in the stock market at the time, so what happened was a lot of unethical situations. Investors would group together to create "pools", meaning they would buy eachothers stocks and cause outside investers to speculate the company to be doing well, so they would heavily invest, and the the investers who formed the pool would then withdraw there money, dropping the stock prices back down to their normal levels. This was not illegal at the time, but today if you do so you can expect to spend some time behind bars, if caught that is.

Well, like all good things there is eventually an end to it all. The stock market, after much artifical inflation, began to decline. This scared Americans so they began to quit purchasing luxuray goods and investing in the stock market, halting economic activity. This led to the crash of the stock market, and along came what we know today as the "Great Depression."