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The Crash

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Where am I?

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Oh. Here I am. That was one nasty crash. [kid crashes bike on road]

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I'll probably have bruises to show for it for several weeks.

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But they're nothing compared to the bruises incurred from last year's crash...

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Let me go back to the beginning.

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Okay, a little after that. It was 1928... and the day of my twelfth birthday.

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My parents wanted to give me a little capital to start my own business.

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So they started me out with ten dollars... [parents give kid $10]

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and I was able to set up shop at the end of the driveway.

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For a while there, my name was synonymous with lemonade. [kid runs lemonade stand]

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In a year's time, I had saved one hundred dollars. A small fortune. [kid puts money in piggy bank]

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Of course, my parents wanted me to invest my earnings.

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If there was anything that the boom of the 1920's had taught us,

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it was that stocks were a "sure thing."

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Dad hooked me up with his broker, who allowed me to borrow ten times as much money, as equity...

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...and to buy stocks with it at some pretty fantabulous rates. [kid walk to stock market]

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So I borrowed one thousand dollars and bought eleven hundred dollars'

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worth of stock in an oil company.

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At one dollar a share, I was able to buy eleven hundred shares. [kid with oil rig in background]

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Because of all the consumer optimism at the time, everyone was pouring money into the

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stock market, and my oil company was raking it in.

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Before long, my stock had risen to three dollars a share, and I was

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laughing all the way to the bank.

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Taking into consideration my original investment,

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I was suddenly worth two grand, give or take.

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And I could have had all that deniro... if I had sold right then.

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Oh, if only someone had visited me from the distant future...

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to steer me in the right direction!

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Okay, so my parents suggested I sell, but they're my parents.

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They also think I should eat all my Brussels sprouts too.

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I have to take everything they say with a grain of salt.

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Instead, I listened to this Wall Street analyst who said my stock

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was going to ten dollars a share and I'd be crazy to sell.

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I didn't want to be called crazy...

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So I didn't sell.

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Sure enough, the stock tanked... as did the rest of the market. [militay tank explodes]

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By the time my oil company had dropped back down

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to its original price of one dollar a share, I was broke.

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The taxes and interest had cleaned me out...

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I didn't even have my original hundred dollars anymore. [kid at broken lemonade stand]

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And it happened so fast.

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At the end of the day, my stock had dropped even further, and was now at seventy cents a share.

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I was bankrupt, and the brokerage was left having to pay what I couldn't.

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They were suddenly several hundred bucks in the hole.

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Sadly, my story isn't a unique one.

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Last year's crash wiped out nearly everyone who had put a good chunk of their savings [old newspapers about the crash]

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into the stock market. But at least I'm a kid, and I've got my

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whole life to learn from past mistakes and hopefully carve out a good life for myself.

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The same can't be said for a lot of grown-ups.

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When the bottom dropped out of the economy, it hurt everyone pretty badly.

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Demand for goods plummeted because those who had lost a bundle in the stock market suddenly

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had holes in their pockets.

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And good luck financing new investments through the sale of stock.

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Nobody was buying stocks any longer.

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They weren't falling for that again.

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But in the meantime, millions had lost their jobs.

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... their homes...

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...and had to start standing in breadlines and visiting soup kitchens

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just to keep some meat on their quickly deteriorating bones. [old photos of people in line for food]

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Some even gave up all hope and jumped out of a twenty-story window.

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Believe it or not, those guys were in even worse shape than my bike.

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Speaking of which, I should probably get this guy down to the scrap metal yard so I can sell it for parts.

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Maybe I can scrounge together enough coins to buy a few slices of bread for dinner.

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But, you know... enjoy your Chinese take-out, or whatever you're having tonight.

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