Читать книгу Out of Work - Richard K Vedder - Страница 43

The seven years from the autumn of 1922 to the autumn of 1929 were arguably the brightest period in the economic history of the United States. Virtually all the measures of economic well-being suggested that the economy had reached new heights in terms of prosperity and the achievement of improvements in human welfare. Real gross national product increased every year, consumer prices were stable (as measured by the consumer price index), real wages rose as a consequence of productivity advance, stock prices tripled. Automobile production in 1929 was almost precisely double the level of 1922.³⁵ It was in the twenties that Americans bought their first car, their first radio, made their first long-distance telephone call, took their first out-of-state vacation. As noted earlier, this was the decade when America entered “the age of mass consumption.”³⁶