São Paulo, 1928
It was a blooming day in the Imperial Captial. The sun shined over the palace courtyard and paper boys yelled at the top of their lungs to deliver the morning news.
But not all was shining. Rumors had it the Iron Deposits of the Cantareira Formation up north were dwindling. In the news, several interviewed economists predicted an imminent economic crisis if an alternative to iron was not found soon. Of course, the Palace dismissed this as sensationalism, and assured that the potential "crisis" was nowhere near as serious as what the news predicted it to be.
However, the Real Mark was already feeling the early signs of disaster, as the economy slowly but surely slowed down and the coin lost its value each passing day. The prices of typewriters, chairs, sinks, fridges and other iron-based products was on the rise. Luckuly thoguh, the rest of the market still remained fairly the same, though economists didnt expect that to last. The best-case scenarios predicted showed the price of bread, meat and other essential products rising by at least 150% by 1930, if the current rate of iron consuption remained unchanged.
The reason iron had such a crucial role in the economy was the great dependancy of the country on it. For the past 50 years, the mineral had crept up in importance to the state, as the Empire transitioned from a agrarain economy, exporting raw material and importing finished goods to a indstrial one which exported the goods it once bought. This caused a massive demand for iron in infrastructure projects, such as ships, railways, trains and highways, along with it's use in the goods themselves. The military also had a increasing demand for steel, with projects centered in the development of tanks, airplanes and, most noticably, a comical amount of battleships.
The sudden lack of the material would surely send the country into an inescapable spiral of economic depression. And, when it was discovered that the iron deposits in the mines of the Cantareira Formation were significalty more shallow and scarce than predicted, several economists and stock owners predicted an eventual crisis in the near future if a replacement was not found. As their calls went ignored, and the deposits dwindled, the threat of crisis grew ever closer. 1928 was the last year in which you could say the Empire was truly prosperous. The very next year, the crisis would hit with it's full force, crippling the Empire so much that the economy would only reach the same pre-1929 levels in the 1970s, under the Euro-Paulistian Union. The Crisis of '29 was the catalyst which would lead to the decline and dissolution of the Empire in 1953.
