The Great Depression: A Diary: A Diary

One of the best books on economics in a story form.

Benjamin Roth's first hand account of The Great Depression from 1931 to 1941 was a very fascinating and personal read that provided not only historical perspective on the events of the time, but also a friendly voice and opinion of the days events.What really set this book apart for me was the authors first hand account of events as they unfolded, versus most historical accounting of the period which are mostly a retrospects. Mr. Roth fills us in on current events as they unfolded in America during the time, his opinion on the situations (which leaned conservative) and his predictions. A fun bit of the book is that Mr. Roth would actually go back and review entries and add updates such as "These predictions turned out to be completely wrong.".I think this book also hit home for me due to the financial situation we're currently going through these days in America. You read about Mr. Roth's trepidations towards FDR and his "New Deal", constantly warning of out of control government spending and the impending inflation boom (which never came).My wife and I were talking and this book seems to beg the question of what would have come of the American economy if World War 2 hadn't started. Would we have continued on a downward spiral of inflation? It's not fun think about but I really feel that this book paints an accurate (if not a bit biased, but as to be expected with the nature of the account) of The Great Depression and how it impacted Main Street America. (show less)

FAntastic Book on the Daily Life during the Great Depression >

My father was born in 1932. The only thing my father said about the Great Depression was about being hungry all the time when he was a boy. He and his brother were once so hungry they ate dried powder Jell-O. My dad turned out to be a hoarder of scrap wood, nuts, and bolts on his farm.My father-in-law was born in 1920. He turned out to have a life long hatred of the stock market and refused to ever invest in stocks.After reading this book, I better appreciate how the Depression experience changed their lives forever.During the Roaring Twenties, the Dow Jones average grew at a compounded growth rate of 16% a year. It increased from about 100 in 1920 to 381 in 1929. This boom period is similar to the decades of the 1980s and 1990s. In each of these decades, the stock market appreciated at a compounded annual growth rate of about 18%.It is hard for me to comprehend the stock market shrinking in value by 90%. I first started investing in stock mutual funds in 1980. I lived through the 1-day decline of 22% in 1987, and the roughly 50% declines in both the Tech Wreck of 2000 and the Sub-Prime Crash of 2008. I stayed the course and stayed fully invested through these declines. I am not sure I could stay the course through a 90% decline like in the Depression.It was interesting to read about Roth's struggles to understand all the economic factors changing around him. It seems that 70 years later in 2008, nobody really understands economics yet. When the first rumbling of troubles in the real estate market surfaced in 2006, I remember an "expert" talking head on TV commenting on the situation. His prediction was that since real estate and construction were less than 10% of the annual GDP, even if we lost the whole sector it would not have much impact on the economy. He did not realize that like the Great Depression, highly leveraged investments implode when the market prices goes down.I liked Roth's internal struggles to develop an investment strategy that would survive the inevitable boom and bust cycles. He trends towards buying investments at the bottom and selling at the top. He then realizes it is almost impossible to make 2 decisions at exactly the right times (the buy and sell decisions).The Great Depression prompted other to try to develop a better investment strategy. Benjamin Graham settled in on a portfolio with both stocks and bonds. He suggested the stock portion range from 25% to 75%, with the balance in bonds. He suggested buying stocks when they were selling for less than 50% on the dollar, and selling when they reached 100% of their intrinsic value.Roth observed that investors with a diversified portfolio did ok. This included blue chip stocks, government bonds, and real estate. None of these should be purchased using borrowed money.It is too bad the authors did not add a graph of the Dow Jones from 1920 until 1940. This graphic would help readers to understand with an image how high the market went, and how dramatically it declined.If you are going to attempt to grow your wealth over time, I highly recommend you read this book.

Good but got kind of boring after a while. I havent finished it yet.

The description promised:This collection . . . reveals another side of the Great Depression—one lived through by ordinary, middle-class Americans, who on a daily basis grappled with a swiftly changing economy coupled with anxiety about the unknown future. ... ( they ) seem to speak directly to readers today.That would be a lot and it was all I expected.It is slightly misleading however. The author is by no means ordinary. Middle class, yes. Ordinary - no. He is an attorney and understands logic and mis-direction.What I got was a description of the evolution of an intellegent motivated man who admitedly knew nothing about stocks, bonds, investments or economics but who had a passion to understand what was happening, into a truely impressive economic prognosticator.He was observant enough to realize that the government and the news papers were not telling him the truth. He had a passion to find out what was really happening. He made an exhaustive study of economics, the business cycle, and past crashes. He soon came to realize that the "Experts" didn't know any more about what was going to happen than he did.He records his studies along with similarities between his current crisis and historical past crises. He makes predictions based on his own studies. He not only writes his expectations, he re-reads them years later and adds comments on his prior writings - one, two, and more years later that he was right or wrong in his expectations.I have been studying these crises since my father made me read "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" around 1960. I learned more practical knowledge from this book than from any other book I have ever read.Who should read this book?If you are worried about the future and want to know how to protect your assets and your standard of living. You really should read this book.If for some reason, you are NOT worried about the future and don't worry about protecting your assets and your standard of living. You need ths book even more.