One of the historical incidences that reflect a cause and effect phenomenon is the Great Depression. Starting in the United States, the Great Depression was a global economic depression. It is considered as the deepest, longest, and the most widespread depression that has ever occurred. Many economic experts argue that the Great Depression began on September 4^th, 1929as a result of various factors. Some of the causes of the Great Depression include bank failures, failure in the stock market, a decrease in purchases, the economic policy of America in Europe, and the drought incidences witnessed.

Even though the 1929 stock market was essential for the startof the Great Depression, it was the only significant factor in play. A few months after the initial crash in the economy in the wake of the Great Depression, stockholders are reported to have lost more than $41 billion. Although the stock market started regaining some of the losses it incurred around 1930, it was generally enough, and American began to feel the impact of the economic depression, famously known as the Great Depression. Even though the United States lost a massive amount of financial strength through the crash in the stock market, other factors such as bank failures created huge impacts on the economy.

After the massive market crash, a significant bank failurestarted taking place. Economists tend to debate whether bank failures resulted in the Great Depression or whether it was the Great Depression that not resulted, however, this is much undisputed. At around 1933, more than 11, 000of the country’s 25,000 banks had vanished. Thousands of customers started withdrawing their deposits. With loans going sour and no money to lend and businesses and farmers going belly up, the banking crisis in America increased. President Franklin D. Rooseveltattempted to tackle the Great Depression by setting a 3-day bank holiday, and as a result of this, around 11,000 banks were saved.

Because of the bank failures and stock market crash, the naturally purchasing power decreased. People started losing their jobs and were not able to continue paying for the items they had acquired through installment plans. As a result, their items were repossessed. Additional inventory started accumulating, and the unemployment rate increased to above 25%. This meant that less spending would be ideal to help alleviate the economic situation. It is evident that the Great Depression was a chain of reactions, where every loss created an exponential effect.

In 1930, the government introduced the Smoot-Hawley Tariffto protect American firms. High tax for imports wasimplemented to reduce the rate of imports from foreign countries and help promote local companies. Less trading activities thus occurred between America and foreign nations with some economic retaliation. This means that even though the Tariff enabled organizations to remain afloat, the overall trade between the US and other countries increasingly became less.

Another factor that was necessarily a direct cause of the Great Depressionbut was a factor that increasingly worsenedthe general economic conditions in the country was the Dust Bowl. This is a drought that lasted for six years (1930-1936). It intensifiedthe challengesof the Great Depression. More than 1 million acres of land were rendered useless since severe drought and several years of overfarming. This made hundreds of thousands of farmers to become unemployed. As the agricultural sector got a hard hit, the Great depression became even more terrible.

Based on the above description, it is evident that the Great Depression resulted from various factors, apart from 1929 the stock marketcrash. Among the causes of the Great Depression include bank failures, a reduction in the purchasing power, worsening US economic policies in Europe, and the existence of the Dust Bowl. All these factors (causes) to make the Great Depression wasit became to be: the most dreadful economic collapse of the 20^thcentury.

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