# Quote — John Kenneth Galbraith, The Great Crash 1929

> This view that the action of the Federal Reserve authorities in 1927 was responsible for the speculation and collapse which followed has never been seriously shaken. There are reasons why it is attractive. It is simple, and it exonerates both the American people and the economic system from substantial blame... Yet the explanation obviously assumes that people will always speculate if only they can get the money to finance it. Nothing could be farther from the case. There were times before and there has been long periods since when credit was plentiful and cheap—far cheaper than in 1927-29—and when speculation was negligible. Nor was speculation out of control after 1927, except that it was beyond the reach of men who did not want in the least to control it. The explanation is a tribute only to a recurrent preference, in economic matters, for formidable nonsense.

- Author: [John Kenneth Galbraith](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-kenneth-galbraith.md)
- Book: [The Great Crash 1929](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-kenneth-galbraith/the-great-crash-1929.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Kenneth_Galbraith#The_Great_Crash,_1929_(1954_and_1997)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-kenneth-galbraith/the-great-crash-1929/this-view-that

## More from this book

> But now, as throughout history, financial capacity and political perspicacity are inversely correlated. Long run salvation by men of business has never been highly regarded if it means disturbance of orderly life and convenience in the present. So inaction will be advocated in the present even though it means deep trouble in the future. Here, at least equally with communism, lies the threat to capitalism. It is what causes men who know that things are going quite wrong to say that things are fundamentally sound.

p. 194 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-kenneth-galbraith/the-great-crash-1929/but-now-as-throughout.md)

> But there is still a considerable difference between a failure to do enough that is right and a determination to do much that is wrong.

p. 192 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-kenneth-galbraith/the-great-crash-1929/but-there-is-still.md)

> In accordance with an old but not outworn tradition, it might now be wise for all to conclude that crime, or even misbehavior, is the act of an individual, not the predisposition of a class.

p. 165 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-kenneth-galbraith/the-great-crash-1929/in-accordance-with.md)