200801224 DIS
Park, Sunghee
The Great Depression
In the late 2008, Lehman Brothers, the fourth largest investment bank in the U.S., collapsed and it was the largest bankruptcy in the U.S. history. The incident was the beginning of the Global financial crisis because the crisis had huge impacts not only on U.S. economy but on the world economy. The domino effect was enormous. As a result, the stock market and housing market slumped a lot and many people lost their job. Some experts say it is as if the Great Depression happened again. If so, what can we learn from the past crisis? I believe we can find some wisdom by looking at causes of the Great Depression. The Great Depression was caused by imbalance of demand and supply, government policy, and strong connection of the world economy.
First, imbalance of demand and supply triggered the Great Depression. In 1920’s, effective method of production was implemented in the U.S. production line because the U.S. invented the way of production as they made military supplies during the World War Ⅰ. Adoption of new method made the supply over the demand. It was a kind of revolution because the supply was always under the demand in the past. The revolution seemed nice but excess supply brought a problem. It was that there is no one who buys the extra productions. Due to the huge surplus, a lot of companies lost their profits and it was the beginning of the Great Depression.
Second, government economic policy brought the Great Depression. At that time, Classical economy was a prevailing idea. Especially, Adam Smith’s invisible hand theory was adapted to government policy. The theory believes that market can self-regulate and allocate resources without government regulation. That’s why the government did not take any actions when there happened imbalance of supply and demand. However, government should have reallocated the supply and demand. The wrong policy finally made imbalance of supply and demand the Great depression though it could be just incident if government took right actions.
Lastly, strong connection between U.S. economy and the world economy led to the Great Depression. In 1920’s, European economy was suffered from the World War Ⅰ. Because of the aftereffect, European economy highly relied on the U.S. aid. In addition, Asian countries was undeveloped at all because most of them just became independent after the World War Ⅰ. For that reason, Asian economy also needed the U.S. help. As the U.S. economy had problems, however, both European economy and Asian economy took direct hit. The effect spread to the whole world and this was the Great Depression.
From Hannah Kim
ReplyDelete1. What I like about this piece of writing is that your writing is really well organized. You explained three causes of the great depression and added three effects each of which you placed at the end of the paragraph.
2. Your main point seems to be the cause and effect of the great depression.
3. These particular words or lines struck me as powerful:
1) the introduction was good. The general information about the event in 2008 made a interesting and great hook. It seems professional and stylish.
2) also, the question that you put in the introduction was also impressive. This sentence makes the readers to concentrate on your writing more and your writing really interesting. Not only that, although people do not usually think they can put a question in their writing because they tend to write just with normal sentences that end with puctuation, yours was really fresh.
3) Personally, I really love the word ‘triggered’ in the conclusion very much. The reason is that I would always say sth caused sth when I have to write this kind of sentence. It is almost impossible to think expressions or words other than this.
4. The one change you could make that would make the biggest improvement in this piece of writing is that, although it is really not such a big deal, I think it would be better to omit the wish that you made at the last sentence. In my opinion, because it is a logical writing based on fact, it is better not to add any personal thinking or opinion.
I enjoyed reading your essay. It seems like you gets better and better! Well-organized for sure, word choice was good as well. Clear casues and effects.
ReplyDeleteHowever, as you know I should suggest something to improve your essay, well... you include two lessons with your own wish. If you want to do it, I should say "Put it in detail" It's so abrupt to end essay with just few thoughts or lessons. ^^
Good work, keep on going!
<2nd draft>
ReplyDeleteIn the late 2008, Lehman Brothers, the fourth largest investment bank in the U.S., collapsed and it was the largest bankruptcy in the U.S. history. The incident was the beginning of the Global financial crisis because the crisis had huge impacts not only on U.S. economy but on the world economy. The domino effect was enormous. As a result, the stock market and housing market slumped a lot and many people lost their job. Some experts say it is as if the Great Depression happened again. If so, what can we learn from the past crisis? I believe we can find some wisdom by looking at causes of the Great Depression. The Great Depression was caused by imbalance of demand and supply, government policy, and strong connection of the world economy.
First, imbalance of demand and supply triggered the Great Depression. In 1920’s, effective method of production was implemented in the U.S. production line because the U.S. invented the way of production as they made military supplies during the World War Ⅰ. Adoption of new method made the supply over the demand. It was a kind of revolution because the supply was always under the demand in the past. The revolution seemed nice but excess supply brought a problem. It was that there is no one who buys the extra productions. Due to the huge surplus, a lot of companies lost their profits and it was the beginning of the Great Depression.
Second, government economic policy brought the Great Depression. At that time, Classical economy was a prevailing idea. Especially, Adam Smith’s invisible hand theory was adapted to government policy. The theory believes that market can self-regulate and allocate resources without government regulation. That’s why the government did not take any actions when there happened imbalance of supply and demand. However, government should have reallocated the supply and demand. The wrong policy finally made imbalance of supply and demand the Great depression though it could be just incident if government took right actions.
Lastly, strong connection between U.S. economy and the world economy led to the Great Depression. In 1920’s, European economy was suffered from the World War Ⅰ. Because of the aftereffect, European economy highly relied on the U.S. aid. In addition, Asian countries was undeveloped at all because most of them just became independent after the World War Ⅰ. For that reason, Asian economy also needed the U.S. help. As the U.S. economy had problems, however, both European economy and Asian economy took direct hit. The effect spread to the whole world and this was the Great Depression.
The Great Depression was triggered because there was a huge surplus, wrong government policy, and strong relations among the world economy. Though the causes are different from the causes of Global financial crisis, we can find some lessons. First, government should select and take swift and right actions to prevent crisis. Second, each county need to lower its level of dependence on exports although trade is good for the economy.