When he was a haberdasher he bought at boom prices and sold at depression prices.
During the Depression prices fell because there was too little demand, thanks to financial panic and widespread unemployment.
As buyers subsequently priced in a recession rather than a depression, prices recovered even as stocks were rising.
Sen. Pat McCarran brought up a bill in Congress every year since 1937 to give the land to the squatters or let them buy it at depression prices, but the Indian Bureau fought it.
At Bertha's, customers are neighborhood people who can order an omelet for $5.50 while sipping a cup of the house blend for a dollar -- not Depression prices but not new economy, either.
Forbes: Is Japan still priced at Great Depression prices?
Specifically, by taking America off the gold standard — a shocking move at the time — and explicitly calling for a return to pre-Depression price levels, FDR created an expectation of rising prices that had a salutary effect on demand.
All now begin to feel and acknowledge that want of consumption is the true cause of depression and low prices, that the real cause of all our evils is found in the want of employment for the labour, energy, and capital of the country as it now is: but how is that to be remedied?
In the eighteen-twenties, books cost, on average, two dollars; during the depression, that price fell to fifty cents.
"The company should encourage the government, and the government should recognize that this is a good time to do this, so that when they are ready to list, they don't have a depression in price," Ms. O'Neill said in a telephone interview from Philadelphia.
