When NIEUW AMSTERDAM was launched 1937, she was one of the Ships Of State. Built as ship of peace and for tomorrow. These ships had been build by tax payers money, and had been somehow, as NORMANDIE , QUEEN MARY and QUEEN ELIZABETH , and others, may given the economist John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), after his model of deficit spending and the artificially created demand in times of recession, pride, as he could not have imagined any better ... by Earl Cruise Nieuw Amsterdam, detail of a travelposter from 1938, pure Art Deco - own collection T he world was, when NIEUW AMSTERDAM was on the drawing board, still in the grip of the Great Depression , which started with the imploding of the stock bubble in New York on October 29th 1929, known as the Black Tuesday . This stock crash was the result of the irrational illusion, that money can create revenue on its own ... Nieuw Amsterdam, copy of a postcard, based on a painting - Source: ssmaritime.com To this day, ...