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Why You've Never Heard of the Great Depression of 1920
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"Another Time - Same Place:
The place is, of course, the United States. The data is from the Statistical History of the United States:
Real wages for the working man tripled in the years 1850-1913. US GDP increased over 500 percent, averaging 4.3 percent annual growth from 1870-1913. This highly productive era was accompanied by steadily FALLING consumer prices. From 1800 to 1913, there was an overall 30 percent reduction in the Consumer Price Index from 43 to 30.6. "Modern" economists stand dumbfounded before these facts, but the "Gilded Epoch" which lasted from about 1870 to 1910 has often been called the second American industrial revolution. US wholesale prices, for instance, increased by an annual average of only 0.1 per cent from 1879 to 1913. The long-term stability of the late 19th century was not, of course, due to US government measures. It was the semi-automatic effect of the international Gold standard. There was no Federal Reserve and the US income tax amendment to the Constitution had not been enacted. Gold and Silver coinage was there and Americans had the most productive period ever as living standards climbed." - The Privateer
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