Here in briefest form is the modern political dialectic. It is an unequal contest: the rich and the comfortable have influence and money. And they vo… - John Kenneth Galbraith

In fact, the Federal Reserve was helpless only because it wanted to be. Had it been determined to do something, it could for example have asked Congress for authority to halt trading on margin by granting the Board the power to set margin requirements. Margins were not low in 1929; a residue of caution had caused most brokers to require customers to put up in cash 45 to 50 per cent of the value of the stocks they were buying. However, this was all the cash numerous of their customers had.

In economics, unlike fiction and the theater, there is no harm in a premature disclosure of the plot: it is to see the changes just mentioned and others as an interlocked whole.

No hungry man who is also sober can be persuaded to use his last dollar for anything but food.