Thanks to wall street?
Do you think the price for example, beef cattle should be 'fixed' by an outside agency?
Excess livestock?....You are clueless. The concept of 'excess livestock' is just a made up term to make people feel better.
The fact is government interfered in the marketplace by mandating a ceiling of supply of livestock to market.
Those hungry consumers to which you referred were priced out of the market by government actions.
The government limited the supply thus artificially increasing demand. The prices were forced upward.
"The richest one percent of Americans owned over a third of all American assets.
"Such wealth concentrated in the hands of a few limits economic growth.
"The wealthy tended to save money that might have been put back into the economy if it were spread among the middle and lower classes.
"Middle class Americans had already stretched their debt capacities by purchasing automobiles and household appliances on installment plans.
"The unprecedented prosperity of the 1920s was suddenly gone, the Great Depression was upon the nation, and breadlines became a common sight.
"There were fundamental structural weaknesses in the American economic system. Banks operated without guarantees to their customers, creating a climate of panic when times got tough.
"Few regulations were placed on banks and they lent money to those who speculated recklessly in stocks.
"Agricultural prices had already been low during the 1920s, leaving farmers unable to spark any sort of recovery. When the Depression spread across the Atlantic, Europeans bought fewer American products, worsening the slide."
The Great Depression [ushistory.org]