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Prosperity Decade
1. The 1920s were a period of great change in American life that lasted nearly ten years. The First World War had just ended, and a time of gay abandon, economic prosperity, and social change had set in. An unpopular prohibition law made it seem that breaking the law could be acceptable and even commonplace. The tone of the times was one of excitement, of excesses, of new freedom.
2. During the 1920s many people made money by buying shares, or stocks, in different companies. The price of a company's stock depends on business condition. If many buyers want to buy stock in a company, the price of the stock will rise. If many stock owners want to sell their stock, the price will go down. In the 1920s stock prices seemed to go in only one direction: up. There were stories of shoeshine boys and office workers who made fortunes in the stock market in one day.
3. People were making more money than ever before. Companies used advertising to encourage people to buy their products. Advertising became important to business during the 1920s. Another way of encouraging people to buy more goods was called instalment buying. When people bought a thing on the instalment plan, they had to pay only a small part of the total price for the thing. Each month they paid another small some, called an instalment. People paid instalments until they had paid the whole price of the thing they had bought.
4. People were earning a lot of money, and the system of instalment buying seemed a good idea. But some experts warned that too many Americans owed too much money. If people suddenly lost their jobs, they would not be able to pay their debts. Then business would suffer. But few people listened to these warnings. Business was expanding. People kept buying on the instalment plan. The golden years were up to 1929 - and then came Black Tuesday, the day of October 1929 of the inevitable stock market crash, that spanned ten years.
Определите основную идею текста.
People were encouraged to spend their money on goods by companies through advertising and instalment buying.
During Prosperity Decade a lot of people made money by buying and selling stocks and shares of different companies.
The 1920s were a period of economic prosperity and social changes in the United States as a result of the end of the First World War.
The 1920s were years of prosperity thanks to the stock manipulations and the system of instalment buying which later led to the greatest depression.
