that sense of there is no limit and that all this this expansion this success this Alon um we're not really going to have to pay for it now of course that didn't turn out to be true you could see the crash Why do you think they called it the crash I mean it's really an Airborne collapse metaphor you can't crash if you never left the ground um and it's not like a crackup where you're on the ground and you Collide into something else rather it's you know the plane fell the 20s had been so prosperous in so many places not in the countryside the farming um industry was in very bad shape in the 1920s but it certainly in the cities it was very prosperous people were making fortunes on the stock market and then all of a sudden poof it went I mean people economists very serious economists had been saying that we'd reached a new level a new plateau of prosperity in this country and we you know we were never going to go back and then the crash happened all through the summer of 1929 there had been ominous Rumblings for months unemployment had been rising automobile sales and department store revenues had fallen off sharply across the south and west Farms were failing in record numbers and still on Wall Street the Delirious optimism continued undimmed on August 27th 1929 the Dow Jones average reached its alltime peak as an army of frenzy buyers descended on New York desperate not to miss a single day's trading swamping the hotels camping out on the street in front of the Stock Exchange and in the tiny graveyard of Trinity Church on Broadway where Alexander Hamilton lay buried what caused the crash of 29 was excess speculation what had happened was that the American economy as a whole had begun to cool in starting in 1928 and the Wall Street economy disconnected from the underlying real economy and became a speculative bubble and this fueled the speculation that just took off and took off and took off until again one day somebody woke up and said this has gone too far there's an old story about Bernard baroo that he had his shoes shined Every Morning by the same Sho shine boy and one morning the Sho shine boy gave him a stock tip and Baro went to his office call up his broker and said sell me out when shushan boys are giving stock dips it's time to get out as summer turned to fall the mood changed as the stock market dipped then Rose then lurched downwards again investors grew increasingly uneasy in September an economist named Roger Babson sent a wave of fear Rippling through Wall Street when he warned that sooner or later a crash is coming and it may be terrific but most experts brushed away any concerns stock prices one man declared have reached what looks like a permanently High plateau and then the bottom fell out on Wednesday October 23rd 1929 the first waves of panicky selling began to drive down the price of Blue Chip stocks like Westinghouse and General Electric the following morning the fear turned to panic and Brokers began unloading margin Accounts at record speed stock prices plummeted sickeningly across the board spurring the rush of sell orders from terrified speculators still more as anguished shrieks rose up from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange the visitors Gallery was clear in less than 2 hours nearly $10 billion invested in stocks was simply wiped out outside on the street crowds massed six deep in front of the stock exchange while hundreds more stood in shocked silence on the steps of Federal Hall newspapers would later try to describe the uncanny murmuring sound that echoed off the stone facades of the financial district that morning it was a collective moan of Horror and grief and stunned disbelief rising up from thousands of ruined frightened men the biggest crowds gathered outside the house of Moran desperately hoping for a miracle cheers broke out when word came that a Consortium of Bankers had agreed to pump hundreds of millions of dollars into the stock exchange to shore up the faltering Market word spread that once again the day had been saved by the house of Morgan but the day had not been saved on Friday with the market apparently stabilized the banks withdrew their funds the following Tuesday October 29th 1929 known Forever After as Black Tuesday another Title Wave of selling hit the exchange and this time no one came to the rescue nothing could stop it and just people wanted out and this was in the fall most crashes tend to be in the fall and I think it again it's human psychology you tend to be more cautious in the fall I mean the the speculations of Summer that seem so brilliant and suddenly when the chill Winds of October come you wonder if there's such a good idea and you try to get out and if too many people do that at once that it causes the market to drop which causes more people to want to get out and suddenly you know the snowball rolls down the hill hour after hour the market continued its descent into chaos and pandemonium as stock prices simply collapsed under the torrent of panicked selling and desperate Brokers fought and screamed and trampled one another to get out 16 million shares traded that day which seems like nothing today because we trade 16 million shares in the first 5 Seconds of of the business day but the the trading record set on the day of the crash the 16 m shares was not vested until 1969 it was 40 years before the New York Stock Exchange traded more shares than it traded on the day of the crash the tickers did not stop running until quarter of 8 when the market had closed at 3:30 I guess in the worst single day in the history of the New York Stock Exchange the market lost $4 billion in value bringing the week's loss to more than $30 billion 10 times s more than the entire annual budget of the federal government and far more than the United States had spent during all of World War I worst hit in the short run with the thousands of small investors who believing that everyone could be rich had bought stock on margin sometimes borrowing as much as 90% of its Book value in a matter of hours in some cases minutes they had lost everything their life savings their houses and their dreams financiers who had not been wiped out tried to put a brave face on things insisting there was no cause for alarm prudent investors are now buying stocks in huge quantities John Jacob rasop told the New York Times and will profit handsomely when this hysteria is over Wednesday October 30th 1929 Mr rascar was asked if he believed that the decline in the stock market would have great effects on business he answered that he did not believe the effects would be other than temporary lasting probably two or 3 months and then he did not believe that the effects would be drastic in other the luxury Industries the New York Times but others feared the worst the present week one newspaper editor declared has witnessed the greatest stock market catastrophe of all times it would take a decade and a half for the American economy to fully recover I think the reason the crash lives on in the in the American folk memory although there aren't many people alive today who were adults when the crash happened in um almost 70 years ago now but What followed the crash the the Great Depression um which permanently scarred the American psyche and they we remember the crash as the beginning of the Great Depression although in fact the two had nothing to do with each other or very little but that's why I think the crash became such a benchmark because it it was this very sharp line between the prosperity and the giddy cocktail party of the 1920s and the awful depression of the 1930s and the bre lines and the Apple Sellers and and the bonus riots and whatam you