Nothing is inevitable
The Great Depression of 1929 caused 89% of stock market wealth to be wiped out. During that period American births declined by 17%, divorce rates rose by a third and suicides rose by a half.
It was truly a depressing time in history, sandwiched between the two world wars. Its seeds were perhaps sown in the end of the first world war and the depression itself perhaps sowed the seeds of the second world war.
Historians studying these events in hindsight are easily able to string together theories of why the events happened and how they were kind of obvious.
Yet, if we study the public sentiment leading up to the great depression there wasn’t any trace of the imminent disaster. The people had no clue this was going to happen. The experts of the time, the intellectuals, the professors, the thinkers, the professional predictors hadn’t a slightest idea of where the world was going.
Morgan Housel of ‘Collab Fund’ has gone through the newspaper clippings of the decade leading upto the depression of 1929 to gauge the popular mood of the time. Its a fascinating read and a wonderful way to understand a Black Swan event.
It also makes you wonder what are we so oblivious about today in our society?
Check it out —
History is only interesting because nothing is inevitable
(14 mins)
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