How did some people get rich during the Great Depression?

[Starving Steve]

Re: How did some people get rich during the Great Depression?

J.P. Getty reminds me of the ficticious personage of Jack Benny on The Jack Benny Show on radio and television in America in the early 1950s. The ficticious personage of Jack Benny was supposed to be a miser who lived alone in a mansion in Beverly Hills. He was portraited to be so cheap as to have a candy machine and a pay-phone in his living- room, for the use of his many guests and help. This was all part of the comedy of that show.

http://www.timvp.com/jackbeny.html




Witness now, the real person, Jean Paul Getty, with a net worth of fifty or sixty billion dollars and a pay-phone installed in his estate to collect dimes. He resented long distance bills run-up on his phone by his visitors and help.

[Slimprofits]

Re: How did some people get rich during the Great Depression?

P.T. Barnum was just getting into the circus business during the Panic of '73 and the Long Depression that followed.

During the Great Depression some got rich capitalizing on New Deal contracts.

[Starving Steve]

Re: How did some people get rich during the Great Depression?

I think the lesson from Jack Benny (ficticious personage on radio and TV) and J.P. Getty, the oil billionare from Oklahoma, is that people, rich or poor, survived during the lean years by making every dime count. And if the years turned-out to be prosperous, they counted dimes to save just in case of a down-turn.

[flintlock]

Re: How did some people get rich during the Great Depression?

The rich got richer, nothing special about that. Those who had REAL money( and no debt) to invest gobbled up bargains. Same will happen this time around.

[dbarberic]

Re: How did some people get rich during the Great Depression?

they sold a million apples at 10 cents a piece.

They became apple distributors...

[tree]

Re: How did some people get rich during the Great Depression?

My mother was briefly secretary to the president (he wasn't nice to her) of the National Realtors Association in D.C.

He told her that his grandmother had made the family fortune during the Great Depression by "taking money out of a shoebox" and buying real estate.

[FRED]

Re: How did some people get rich during the Great Depression?

My mother was briefly secretary to the president (he wasn't nice to her) of the National Realtors Association in D.C.

He told her that his grandmother had made the family fortune during the Great Depression by "taking money out of a shoebox" and buying real estate.

The reason the money in the shoebox kept its purchasing power unlike many currencies at the time is that the U.S stayed on the gold standard and gold prices were price-protected by the government at $20 and change. Today the government will continually reduce the purchasing power of the money in the shoebox in order to try to prevent the prices of bonds and real estate, the assets that back the FIRE Economy, from deflating against the currency.

[touchring]

Re: How did some people get rich during the Great Depression?

The reason the money in the shoebox kept its purchasing power unlike many currencies at the time is that the U.S stayed on the gold standard and gold prices were price-protected by the government at $20 and change. Today the government will continually reduce the purchasing power of the money in the shoebox in order to try to prevent the prices of bonds and real estate, the assets that back the FIRE Economy, from deflating against the currency.

For how long? China consumption soared in Feb, this was also reflected in the Singapore exports to China in Feb, which partially offset the decline from the USA and Europe. How long will China continue to buy US treasury bonds?