The government created the great depression

Round two was designated for arguments, I will try to now question the Pro's round 1 and round 2 responses while still trying to defend my own arguments. 1) Monetary Policy"The government created a boom in the stock market....."The boom being referred to is the period of rampant economic growth seen in the US in the 1920's, aka the roaring 20's. But the government didnt create the economic boom in the 1920's prior to the Great depression, the boom in the 1920's was caused by - 1 - US industries boosted during WWI being put back into civilian use - 2 - laissez faire policies where the government did NOT intervene in business almost at all - 3 - Tariffs on foreign goods - 4 - Mass production of goods - 5 - Ability to buy on credit. - 6 - New industries being createdhttp://www.gcsehistory.org.uk...http://socyberty.com...http://www.freeonlineresearchpapers.com...So the government only played a very very minor role in creating the boom in the first place, and they had only a minor role in the bust too. "The reason we had such a big bust was not because of free market on the craz, but rather the boom which was artificially pushed by the government."The Pro then uses some 350 page PDF file from the internet to somehow explain why government policies caused the Great Depression to start even though both the Pro and I agree that the government was as little as interventionist as possible in the 1920's. " people may think I will argue they did to much, but on the contrary they did to little" So the government doing too little caused the great depression but at the same time it was the government intervening too much that caused the bust to happen? The boom in the 1920's was caused by a multitude of factors that ranges from a government hands OFF policy and more productivity of businesses. The bust was then caused by the failure of banking institutions, a crash of the stock market, low wages, over production, and a few other things. 2) Fiscal PolicyThe Pro uses some other hundred page PDF's which somewhere argue that Hoover's policies stifled productivity and hurt businesses which caused the Great Depression. Now the reason that Hoover created such policies to sustain wages of workers was to try to fight the effects of deflation that were seen prior to the Great Depression, but the effect they had did harm the economy but it was only one of MANY causes of the Great Depression. The Great Depression was caused partially by government policies but primarily by economic forces beyond the control of the government. "The artificial [high] wages and the tariffs imposed by hoover helped destroy the economy"high wages and tariffs may have harmed businesses, but it did not destroy them because businesses to this day still survive and make huge profits despite laws such as the minimum wage, laws about overtime, laws about requiring safe working conditions, laws about 40 hour work weeks, etc. My point is that even though these kind of policies do take a bite out of the profits of corporations, they are certainly not enough to destroy them. http://www.presidentprofiles.com...3) Deflation"My opponents first argument is under consumption and fear, which was caused by the bubble."Deflation is caused by more than alleged bubbles, deflation is caused by a multitude of things.1- Increased productivity (which in the 1930's was in abundance due to the spread of Mass Production), 2- Decreased demand (which was observed when the stock market crashed in 1929)3- Decrease in the money supply (which was caused by the crash when millions of people lost billions of dollars when annual salaries were under $3,000 a year)So the things that cause deflation are caused by a sudden absence of money to be had and increased productivity of goods. In the 1920's there was already an absence of money since wages were low, there was decreased demand following the stock market crashed which contributed to the onset of the Great Depression, and there was increased productivity which was caused by new technologies, not a government bubble....http://www.economywatch.com...http://www.moneycrashers.com...3+4) Bank Failures and Risky investment into the stock marketPro also tries to pin bank failures and bad investments onto an artificially created bubble of some sort. However the Pro does not address the argument that people were taking advantage of a new way to allegedly try to get rich quick. Buying on margin was a risky way for people to buy and sell stocks at a rapid pace to try to make money fast, and the reason people were doing this was because they believed it was a way to get rich and wealthy, not because some bubble convinced them too. It was quite literally people with money signs in their eyes who poured their savings into the stock market to try to get rich quick off of economic forces that nobody understood. The bank failures on the other hand was due to overzealous loaning to people with bad credit, lack of regulation or restrictions on how much of people's money the banks can take and do whatever they want with it, and also because banks themselves had money signs in their eyes. Banks were just like people who poured tons of money into a system that they did not fully understand how it worked nor knew how risky it was. When the stock market crashed suddenly banks and people lost their money, and when others who did keep their money in banks tried to withdraw money, the banks didnt have it and thus began closing. Bank failures and Bad investment by people into the stock market was not caused by a bubble. It was caused by a combination of greed; lack of regulation, precaution, or guaranteed protection; lack of understanding of how risky such investments were; and the crash of the stock market which left thousands of banks without any of the money that people had trusted them with. 5) WWI debts"My opponent says we gave loans to them. But these loans came from the US government"The last part of the link I posted about this states that "Banks were forced to close as they had loaned money to European and American businesses and didn't have enough money to honor the deposits."http://www.angelfire.com...Money was coming from the US government to give to other European governments to help them rebuild, but at the same time US banks were loaning to overseas businesses to help them rebuild or start up again. When the stock market collapsed it was the banks that lost all of their funds, and the businesses those banks had invested in overseas had failed too. This means that WWI loans given by both the government and the banks were lost, which contributed to the great depression. So to summarize this argument the government did play a role, but they were only half the reason it happened, the other half came from banks. The government did do a few things to contribute to the severity of the Great Depression, but they most certainly did not single handedly cause the Great Depression on their own. The Great Depression was caused by a variety of things such as greed, risky investments, greed, rampant loaning from banks, the stock market crash, overproduction of goods, deflation, poor wages, and other things not caused by the government.