The latter was caused by wrong-headed monetary and fiscal policy, combined with the Smoot-Hawley tariffs, and not by happenings on Wall Street.

ECONOMIST: Wall Street crash

Unemployment increased from 5 percent in November 1929 to 9 percent in December before rebounding to a relatively benign 6.3 percent by June 1930 when the Smoot-Hawley tariffs became law.

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But FDR worsened the financial collapse he inherited from Hoover by raising taxes, pursuing a tight money policy and failing to rescind the Smoot-Hawley trade tariffs.

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Plenty of people argued against the Smoot-Hawley bill, which raised tariffs at the onset of the Depression.

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The Smoot-Hawley Tariff, and the retaliatory tariffs by U.S. trading partners that followed afterwards, reduced American exports and imports by more than half.

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Governments everywhere then tried to reduce imports through tariffs, with America kicking things off with the Smoot-Hawley act of 1930.

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Hawley tried that same tactic in 1930, sponsoring a law that raised tariffs on over 20, 000 imported goods to record levels.

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True, everybody sensible scoffs at Reed Smoot and Willis Hawley, the lawmakers who in 1930 exacerbated the Depression by raising American tariffs.

ECONOMIST: The world economy