The Collapse of Real Savings Caused the Great Depression

07/12/2024 Frank Shostak

Contrary to Milton Friedman’s thesis that the decline in the money supply caused the Great Depression, the real reason was the collapse of real savings, which was due to loose monetary policies by the Federal Reserve.

Original Article: The Collapse of Real Savings Caused the Great Depression

The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.

Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.