Personal analysis of the most important themes for the set of readings from week 4

1. The Great Depression

2. EconomicBreakdown After the First World War, the largest global economic breakdown in history had occurred. In Germany the early 1920s a great inflation and devaluation of currency occurred, and private savings disappeared which created a vacuum of working capital for business. NYSE crash of 1929 amounted to the collapse of the capitalist world economy.

3. Imbalance It could be said that the economic breakdown was caused by a profound imbalance in the international economy, an asymmetry between the U.S.A. and the rest of the world. This didn't work because unlike Great Britain who'd been the power before 1914, the USA didn't really need the rest of the world and after WWI, we didn't need to import much of anything. After WWII, we decided to take a much larger role in the stabilization of the world economy.