Personal income
First, an imbalance in the income distribution. Galbraith asserts "that the 5 per cent of the population with the highest incomes in that year [1929] received approximately one third of all personal income". Personal income in the form of rents, dividends and interest of the well-to-do was approximately twice as much as the period following the Second World War, leaving the economy dependent on a high level of investment and, or, luxury consumer spending with its potential exposure to the Crash of 1929.