Book read: The Great Crash 1929 by J.K Galbraith

I bought this book a few years ago but only read a couple of chapters. Returning to it now I've completed the 200 pages in one day.

A very concise and detailed history of the stock market boom and bust of the 1920s. It details the roles of institutions, the mentality of private investors, and the US government.

Essentially a stock bubble got out of control and investors never believed that a stock could ever fall. But of course it did with devastating consequences and a 10 year depression. Galbraith details the phases of the collapse from the panic selling, to the propping up by the banks, to the despair and acceptance of the permanent falls.

He goes into some technical details but these are never overwhelming, describing the practice of buying on margin, investment trusts that used leverage all of which worked well on the way up but made the situation worse on the way down.

There are some warnings and echoes for the current economic situation, particularly the relay of the reports of "things are getting better" when they seldom were.

The book itself was written 1954 and has remained a classic. I was intrigued to read the Galbraith himself lived a long life, dying in 2006:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kenneth_Galbraith