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→Boom or Bust Cycles: imports
This view explains President Hoover's vigorous counterattack in the wake of Wall Street's initial tumble. Not all of his advisers were so willing to abandon Boom and Bust theories. As late as 1930, Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon held that a panic might not be such a bad thing. "It will purge the rottenness out of the system," he added. "High costs of living...will come down. People will work harder, live a moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people." Mellon lost out, however, and was packed off by President Hoover to the [[Court of Saint James]].
This view explains President Hoover's vigorous counterattack in the wake of Wall Street's initial tumble. Not all of his advisers were so willing to abandon Boom and Bust theories. As late as 1930, Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon held that a panic might not be such a bad thing. "It will purge the rottenness out of the system," he added. "High costs of living...will come down. People will work harder, live a moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people." Mellon lost out, however, and was packed off by President Hoover to the [[Court of Saint James]].
==World Trade==
[[File:Spiral-1933.jpg|thumb|240px|total imports for 75 countries, 1929-33]]
Every country began cutting imports, with the result that world trade spiraled downward, as the "Kindleberger spiral" demonstrates. The total imports of 75 countries declined from $3.0 billion in early 1929, shrinking every quarter to a low of $944 million in spring 1933.<ref> Charles Kindleberger, ''The World in Depression 1929-1939'' (1986), p 170</ref> The U.S. made matters worse with the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1933, which restricted imports into the US. Canada, Britain, France and other countries retaliated by reducing their imports from the US.
== Why the "Great" Depression? ==
== Why the "Great" Depression? ==