Now between '45 and '48, things would change enormously, 'cos we'd had credit in United States, credit from the Bank of America, credit from the Import-Export Bank and people had started working again.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Before the arrival of the Credit Union, people who were from the poor background or a working class background couldn't borrow from banks.
I'd known since about eleven that I wanted to live in America.
We certainly had an upheaval at the start of the Great Depression, and that resulted in a lot of financial reform, but it wasn't done in one stroke, and it wasn't done immediately. The Depression was in 1929 and resulted in the Securities and Exchange Act of '33, '34, '35, '37, '39, and '41.
Indeed, I think most Americans now know that in 1935 when Social Security was created, there were some 42 Americans working for every American collecting retirement benefits.
I'd experienced the '40s and '50s by looking at my grandparents' old clothes, books, and magazines.
The electronics industry expanded rapidly and the seeds for the semiconductor and software revolution were planted. The postwar period also saw the suburbanization of America, the rise of the homeowner, the build-out of the interstate highway system, and the rise of automobile culture. Credit availability expanded dramatically.
When I came to America, there was a lot of decadence in New York in the early '70s because the city was bankrupt and you could do whatever you want!
Back in those days, in the fifties and sixties, countries had balance of payment's deficits or surpluses, those were reflected much more than today in movements of reserves among countries.
In 1900 Americans on average lived for only 49 years and most working people died still on the job.
In the 1930s, unemployed working people could anticipate that their jobs would come back.