Jalopy":38t9aqwn said:
What are some of everyone's perspective on the"Great Depression"? Could it have been avoided ? Was it predestined because of the long-term economic cycles in USA and the World?
My parents and grandparents lived thru it and it stayed with their thoughts all the rest of their lives and how they managed their money and feeding their families.
I know some say it had political beginnings,but I am more interested in the economic causes and results. Please avoid as much political reference as possible.
It absolutely changed people's thinking. It made them conservative. It made them innovative.
My grandfather never threw anything away. He had over 60 boxes of spark plugs in his cabinet. They were all used. Each time he bought a box of plugs, he would put the old plugs back in the individual box and the whole set back into to case box. They were all neatly stacked in the cabinet. Looked brand new until you opened the boxes. Points and condensors too.
Old timers keep nails. Old bent up nails in cans and buckets. They would reuse them.
I watched one of the richest men I ever knew make a sack needle out of an old nail. He flattened the head on an anvil. Then he drilled it for his eye. He took a file and sharpened it and buffed all the rough edges off on the eye end. You could tell he had done this many times before.
I think my generation has lost that conservative mentality. We buy everything. We would not hesitate to spend a couple of dollars on a needle to sew feed sacks with. If we had spent an hour making that needle, we would do a much better job keeping up with it.
