How To Become a Millionaire During The Depression (2024)

How To Become a Millionaire During The Depression

It is a little known fact that more millionaires were made during The Great Depression than in any other era in U.S. history. Want to know how that happened so you can cash in on the economic crisis looming on the horizon?

I did a lot of research work to find the real facts, not just the historical data we are spoon-fed by the media about how hard the depression was on the masses and how hard the President worked to turn the U.S. economy around. It takes digging through piles of research documents including the copyright and patent office files and the Library of Congress to find a lot of the data. However, you can also find a lot of information on the internet if you dig deep enough.

There is one golden nugget in this history lesson that can enable you to make tons of money when our country is in a recession (like right now) because a recession is exactly the same thing as a depression except it doesn’t last as long and the damage is not so bad. So bear with me while I give you a short history lesson that contains this golden nugget.

It is important to know that the Great Depression actually started a few years before the 1929 stock market crash and lasted until World War II brought the country out of the Depression.

In the years before 1929, as more and more credit was extended to businesses and individuals the economy was tipping over the edge from available cash to way too much credit debt. When the amount of extended credit reached a critical mass and companies could no longer pay the credit bills, the companies crashed (the 1929 debacle.) When workers lost their jobs they could not pay their credit debts and the housing market and banking industries crashed.

All the business enterprises that were bought and sold during the depression by people with liquid cash are too numerous to mention, but because of the war effort, those with liquid cash who bought land, homes, companies, or invested in the stocks of the companies that made products that were in demand by our government for the war effort made millions. These industries included such products as:

1 – Metals: steel, iron and aluminum
2 – Communications: radios and parts
3 – Transportation: Aircraft, Tanks, boats and vehicles (and their parts)
4 – Armaments: Guns and munitions
5 – Boots, clothing, belts, backpacks, hats, blankets, tents and cots (and the textiles to make them)
6 – Containers
7 – Shipping – Truck Transportation – Railways
8 – Oil and petroleum and stocks in those oil wells (the Texas oil boom was a biggie!)

A few of the well known companies that changed hands during that period were John Deere, Douglas Aircraft, Reynolds Metals, Ericsson, and even the Goudy Gum Company – they were the first gum company to issue baseball cards with gum.

Some of the oppressive laws that our government passed during the 1930s were an effort to take money from the large number of people who had liquid cash and were using it to buy companies (or stocks in companies) as well as property. The government wanted to take it away from the people who had been smart enough to stash away liquid cash and not get into credit debt, and use it to fund the war effort as well as re-distribute it to the destitute families.

These laws were later ruled unconstitutional, but the point is that the people with liquid cash were spending it in way that made them millions, especially in industries necessary to the war effort. Yes, the stock market crashed, but the stocks could still be bought at undervalued prices and those with cash invested at the bottom of the market.

The tactic to be learned from this is a simple one, and is on that the business owners who use my Cash Flow Management Software implement right away. They stash cash. In case you missed it, here is THE GOLDEN NUGGET: When it comes to money, the only thing you have to fear is having no liquid cash to get you through an economic crisis.

It might be a great time to buy property, but there are many people who have too much of their money tied up in non-liquid investments. They are worth lots of money on paper, but can hardly pay their bills. And there are those who have lost a lot of their money invested in semi-liquid investments like the stock market and have little liquid cash that they could get their hands on within 30 minutes if an emergency presented itself. The frightening shape our current economy is in today has the same indicators that heralded the depression of the 1930’s. Not enough cash savings, too much corporate and personal credit debt, banks failing and having to be bailed out and the mortgage crisis / real estate crash.

What should you be doing? My clients are getting rid of their credit debt and stashing liquid cash like crazy. They are sleeping well at night and will make it through whatever comes. They are “protecting their cash like a junk yard dog.” Does that mean you should sit on all of your cash and do nothing to recover the losses you may have sustained? Absolutely not! Just be very careful what you buy, and make sure that whatever that is, that you have it in your physical posession. Look at all the people who are buying physical gold and silver. They are NOT buying the precious metals ETFs on the stock market because they can’t see the physical metals anywhere that are backing up those stock shares and they aren’t foolish enough to take their word for it either. If you can’t physically feel it or touch it or hold it in your hand, you don’t have it or own it.

How To Become a Millionaire During The Depression