DixieFlatline Posted July 2, 2007 Share Posted July 2, 2007 In The Progressive: put away the flags thread....someone listed out their top 4 Presidents. One of which was FDR. Instead of replying in that thread, I thought I'd start a new one about this article I ran across this morning which takes a different look at FDR and the New Deal. http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010281 The Real Deal Reconsidering our reverence for FDR. BY AMITY SHLAES Sunday, July 1, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT The late Arthur Schlesinger Jr. was a true liberal--a man who welcomed debate. Just before he died this winter, he wrote, quoting someone else, that history is an argument without end. That, Schlesinger added, "is why we love it so." Yet concerning Schlesinger's own period of study, the 1930s, there has been curiously little argument. The American consensus is Schlesinger's consensus: that FDR saved democracy from fascism by co-opting the left and far right with his alphabet programs. Certainly, an observer might criticize various aspects of the period, but scrutiny of the New Deal edifice in its entirety is something that ought to be postponed for another era--or so we learned long ago. Indeed, to take a skeptical look at the New Deal as a whole has been considered downright immoral. The real question about the 1930s is not whether it is wrong to scrutinize the New Deal. Rather, the question is why it has taken us all so long. Roosevelt did famously well by one measure, the political poll. He flunked by two other meters that we today know are critically important: the unemployment rate and the Dow Jones Industrial Average. In his first inaugural address, Roosevelt spoke of a primary goal: "to put people to work." Unemployment stood at 20% in 1937, five years into the New Deal. As for the Dow, it did not come back to its 1929 level until the 1950s. International factors and monetary errors cannot entirely account for these abysmal showings. When I went back to study those years for a book, I realized two things. The first was that the picture we received growing up was distorted in a number of important regards. The second was that the old argument about the immorality of scrutinizing the New Deal was counterproductive. The premier line in the standard history is that Herbert Hoover was a right-winger whose laissez-faire politics helped convert the 1929 Crash into the Great Depression. But a review of the new president's actions reveals him to be a control freak, an interventionist in spite of himself. Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which worsened a global downturn, even though he had long lived in London and understood better than almost anyone the interconnectedness of markets. He also bullied companies into maintaining high wages and keeping employees on their payrolls when they could ill afford to do so. Perhaps worst of all, he berated the stock market as a speculative sinner even though he knew better. For example, Hoover opposed shorting as a practice, a policy that frightened markets at an especially vulnerable time. The second standard understanding is that the Brain Trusters were moderate people who drew from American history when they wrote the New Deal. If their philosophies were left wing, then that aspect ought to be treated parenthetically, the attitude was. But the leftishness of the Brain Trust was not parenthetical. It was central. In the summer of 1927, a group of future New Dealers, mostly junior professors or minor union officials, were received by Stalin for a full six hours when they traveled on a junket to the Soviet Union. Both Stalin's Russia and Mussolini's Italy influenced the New Deal enormously. The Brain Trusters were not, for the most part, fascists or communists. They were thoughtful people who wrote in the New Republic. But their ideas were wrong. Their intense romanticization of the concept of the economy of scale ignored the small man. One of the New Dealers from the old Soviet trip, Rex Tugwell, even created his very own version of Animal Farm in Casa Grande, Ariz. As in the Orwell book, the farmers revolted. The third familiar story line in the received wisdom about the New Deal is that, while it may not have been perfect, it did inspire the American people and tide them over. Here the emphasis is wrong. Roosevelt's radio voice may have inspired--yes. But the New Deal hurt the economy, and that mattered more. At some points Roosevelt seemed to understand the need to counter deflation. But his method for doing so generated a whole new set of uncertainties. Roosevelt personally experimented with the currency--one day, in bed, he raised the gold price by 21 cents. When Henry Morgenthau, who would shortly become Treasury Secretary, asked him why, Roosevelt said that "it's a lucky number, because it's three times seven." Morgenthau wrote later: "If anybody ever knew how we set the gold price through a combination of lucky numbers, etc., I think they would be frightened." The centerpiece of the New Deal, the National Recovery Administration (NRA), was perverse. The premises of its codes were ones anyone would reject outright today--the concept that price cutting caused deflation, for example. Everyone, even Roosevelt's own agonized advisers, understood this. The poet Ogden Nash wrote a poem that captured the inanity--its title was "One from One Leaves Two": Mumblety-pumbledy my red cow She's cooperating now At first she didn't understand That milk production must be planned She didn't understand at first She had to either plan or burst A think tank produced a report of 900 pages in 1935 concluding the NRA "on the whole retarded recovery" (that think tank was the Brookings Institution). Some of the great heroes of the period were the Schechter brothers, kosher butchers who fought the NRA all the way to the Supreme Court and won. Their case was not only jurisprudential but also based on common sense--management from above was killing recovery. The Schechter case is as important to history, as, say, the Gideon case that Anthony Lewis wrote about in his great book about the right to counsel, "Gideon's Trumpet." Where is the "Gideon's Trumpet" for free marketeers? The fourth rule we learned is that Roosevelt's call to "bold, persistent experimentation" was, on balance, good. But this conviction ignores the cost of uncertainty, as the economic historian Robert Higgs first pointed out. Today we know that unknown unknowns are inherently destabilizing. Roosevelt, a man of impulses, changed policies routinely. He moved from supporting big business to attacking it to supporting it again, many times in his presidency. On some days, as Anne O'Hare McCormick, a Maureen Dowd of her time, wrote during FDR's second term, Roosevelt was the personification of "the Dutch householder who carefully totes up his accounts every month and who is really annoyed, now that he is bent on balancing the budget, when Congress can't stop spending." Other days he was a big spender. Uncertainty caused markets to freeze in fear; so did investment--the old New Yorker cartoons of the plutocrats in the salon were true. Yet Roosevelt counterattacked by compiling lists of the wealthy to prosecute--his administration prosecuted the Alan Greenspan of the day, Andrew Mellon, until Mellon died. Roosevelt's administration pushed a plan for an undistributed profits tax to eat the essence out of companies. Policies like this caused the most unnecessary part of the Depression: the Depression within the Depression of the late 1930s. The final line in the traditional story is that Roosevelt's government offices were somehow better than their private sector counterparts--when it came to utilities, for example, we learned that only the federal government could electrify backward rural areas. This is a false memory, for there was a company that already planned to light up the South, Commonwealth and Southern. David Lilienthal of the Tennessee Valley Authority set out to gut it, and succeeded. But the battle over electric power was also, literally, a power struggle between coequals, not a contest between a good policeman and a sinning company. The most useful economic philosophy for understanding what went on is not Keynesianism. It is the public choice theory of James Buchanan and others, which says that government is a competitor that will annihilate what comes in its path. So why has it taken so long to revisit this period? The first reason is that the Great Depression was a disaster. From the Crash to the Dust Bowl and the floods, it all felt like a permanent Katrina, and Americans suspended disbelief. But the reality was that the depression did not mean permanent Katrina--indeed, we see now that that downturn was the exception in the century, not the rule. The next reason we hesitate is World War II. War always trumps economics. New Deal critics were right on the economy, but they were wrong in their estimations of Hitler. To write sympathetically about the Liberty Leaguers is seen, even today, as siding with the appeasers. The incredible rightness of FDR's war policy obscures the flaws in his prior actions. The Cold War also played a role in delaying examination of the 1930s. Nearly all writers today--whether they write policy or history--make a point to avoid being classed with Sen. Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee. But that fear of being labeled as a red-baiter prevented the necessary discussion of the counterproductive policy of the 1930s. In the Cold War, there was also the assumption that Europe certainly, or even the U.S., might conceivably go communist. The premise therefore was that safety nets--from Social Security in the U.S. to codetermination in German boardrooms--were necessary to prevent such an event. Bismarck's social democracy and Roosevelt's New Deal were therefore glorified as justified. In the past half-century, we have learned that much of our capital comes from the private sector, not the public sector, and that most of our growth inheres in the private sector. After the 1980s and 1990s we know that markets can do much of the work that Roosevelt believed only government capital could do. My own sense is that there is a final reason we have all paused at the New Deal--a generational one. To insult the New Deal is to insult the Social Security that we, our parents, or grandparents receive. The Baby Boomers have a reputation as being selfish. But their reverence in regard to Social Security, not to mention Medicare Part D, is overly unselfish, and comes out of misplaced filial piety. Younger Baby Boomers and the generations after them will doubtless pay higher taxes because of our current unwillingness to criticize entitlements. Americans owe them as much as we owe senior citizens. After all, the argument of markets has its own powerful morality. It is immoral to cause unemployment by pretending that a big government policy is morally necessary. When Andrew Mellon and Calvin Coolidge put through their tax cuts in the 1920s, they made the efficiency argument that supply-siders make today: lower rates could yield, they posited, higher revenues. But they also had a moral argument: high taxes were wrong, confiscatory and illiberal, in the classical sense. You can acknowledge this without being a Roosevelt-hater. Schlesinger, who so often contributed to these pages, has already issued the invitation. It is more than time that the rest of us took him up on his offer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UncleBen Posted July 2, 2007 Share Posted July 2, 2007 In every measurable way, the New Deal was a tremendous failure. One of the greatest demonstrations of the folly of central planning. How can you justify price supports designed to hold prices up when half the population is starving? Or wage supports when a third of the population is unemployed? Most people (members of my own family included) argue vehemently that at least FDR "did something" or "made people feel better." Hogwash. Economics isn't about feelings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkinsHokieFan Posted July 2, 2007 Share Posted July 2, 2007 Most people, when they take a college level economics course, learn how the new deal deepend the depression and kept it going. And everyone who took a high school American history course learns that WW2 brought America out of the depression Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMK9973 Posted July 2, 2007 Share Posted July 2, 2007 In every measurable way, the New Deal was a tremendous failure. One of the greatest demonstrations of the folly of central planning. How can you justify price supports designed to hold prices up when half the population is starving? Or wage supports when a third of the population is unemployed?Most people (members of my own family included) argue vehemently that at least FDR "did something" or "made people feel better." Hogwash. Economics isn't about feelings. Actually - You are very wrong on that. Economics is a BIG part of feelings. For the Econmoy to recover, people had to start beliving in Banks again, the stock market again, and to be willing to spend money again. People needed to belive in the US econamy again. While the New deal didn't fix everything, it kept people beliving in the US at a verty critcal time. I agree that WWII was what brought the country back. I'm not sure if the New Deal extended the depression, or just failed to lift us out of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkinsHokieFan Posted July 2, 2007 Share Posted July 2, 2007 double post Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkinsHokieFan Posted July 2, 2007 Share Posted July 2, 2007 Actually - You are very wrong on that. Economics is a BIG part of feelings. For the Econmoy to recover, people had to start beliving in Banks again, the stock market again, and to be willing to spend money again.People needed to belive in the US econamy again. While the New deal didn't fix everything, it kept people beliving in the US at a verty critcal time. Do you honestly believe that? Now I will say, FDR had to take drastic measures because of the horrible state of the nation at the time. But seriously, there was no hint of recovery until the US entered WW2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMK9973 Posted July 2, 2007 Share Posted July 2, 2007 Do you honestly believe that? You don't? If people are scared to spend money, because they think the econmy will crash and they will be left to what ever they saved, do you think that doesn't hurt? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UncleBen Posted July 2, 2007 Share Posted July 2, 2007 Actually - You are very wrong on that. Economics is a BIG part of feelings. For the Econmoy to recover, people had to start beliving in Banks again, the stock market again, and to be willing to spend money again.People needed to belive in the US econamy again. While the New deal didn't fix everything, it kept people beliving in the US at a verty critcal time. I ascribe VERY little economic importance to gauges like the Consumer Confidence Index. People act according to their own microeconomies. I hardly ever think about the latest national metric. I buy my gas, groceries, drive to work all according to my demands, completely devoid of feelings towards the national economy. The reason economics is called the "Dismal Science" is because it is devoid of transcendental notions like feelings. It's materialism, plain and simple. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkinsHokieFan Posted July 2, 2007 Share Posted July 2, 2007 You don't? If people are scared to spend money, because they think the econmy will crash and they will be left to what ever they saved, do you think that doesn't hurt? FDR's policies were not instrumental in getting people to have confidence in the economy again Once America shifted towards a war economy, thats when all attitudes changed I do agree with you about confidence in institutions in general (Apology for me not being very clear in my post) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMK9973 Posted July 2, 2007 Share Posted July 2, 2007 BTW -Let's not forget. The New Deal was a TON of different laws. Some failed. Some worked. The SEC was part of the New Deal. Does anyone want to argue that the SEC has not avioded future depressions? Social Security was part of it (You can argue if that was good or bad). How about the public works part of it. How many national parks and roads in national parks do we have today as a result? Those public works did create jobs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UncleBen Posted July 2, 2007 Share Posted July 2, 2007 Do you honestly believe that? Now I will say, FDR had to take drastic measures because of the horrible state of the nation at the time. But seriously, there was no hint of recovery until the US entered WW2 How do you define "drastic measures"? Assumption of total control over the economy? Just price controls? The Great Depression was a monetary crisis to be sure, but nothing the invisible hand wouldn't have corrected shortly. When the deflation came, people were hurt (lost jobs because employers couldn't afford to maintain salaries), but the price for EVERYTHING was falling. Given time the currency would have resettled and business would resume as normal. FDR's (and his brain trust's) key blunder was the belief in "wage theory." Thinking that keeping wages up, people would have more spending power thus keeping the economy afloat. Of course, such thinking is completely back asswards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMK9973 Posted July 2, 2007 Share Posted July 2, 2007 I ascribe VERY little economic importance to gauges like the Consumer Confidence Index. People act according to their own microeconomies. I hardly ever think about the latest national metric. I buy my gas, groceries, drive to work all according to my demands, completely devoid of feelings towards the national economy.The reason economics is called the "Dismal Science" is because it is devoid of transcendental notions like feelings. It's materialism, plain and simple. Well, your right. They act according to their own microseconomics and their belief. I think you are undervauling what > 20% unemployement looks like. Seeing the people on the street, even if you had a job, you didn't fel comfortable spending money. You needed to not only have income, you needed to belive that you would continue to have income. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMK9973 Posted July 2, 2007 Share Posted July 2, 2007 FDR's policies were not instrumental in getting people to have confidence in the economy againOnce America shifted towards a war economy, thats when all attitudes changed I do agree with you about confidence in institutions in general (Apology for me not being very clear in my post) Ok. That makes sense. And I'll be honest -I have no freaking clue. I mean - I agree with you about the war economy, that's what saved us. but as far as confidence -I don't know. It's hard for me to think about what it was like in 1930. I have never seen Nationwide unemployment at >20%, never known what it was like to not have confidence in the US iteself, never known what it was like to have to wonder if our country would survive the next 20 years. So how much influence did he have? No idea. I know my grandparnets use to tell me they remember listining to his radio chats with their folks. I think it had something to do with it. I think we can relate. On 9/11 - How important was it for us to hear from our president? How badly did we wait for him to say something. How importan was his speach? Even in Jan of 02 - How much confidence did we, as a nation, have after he gave his state of union speach? I think Bush really screwed things up, but I won't lie. It was a great speach and made me feel better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UncleBen Posted July 2, 2007 Share Posted July 2, 2007 BTW -Let's not forget. The New Deal was a TON of different laws. Some failed. Some worked. The SEC was part of the New Deal. Does anyone want to argue that the SEC has not avioded future depressions?. The Great Depression didn't start with the stock market. The SEC is a regulatory agency charged with watching out for criminal action by trading firms. The stock market provides a window into the economy of its listed companies. Social Security was part of it (You can argue if that was good or bad).How about the public works part of it. How many national parks and roads in national parks do we have today as a result? Those public works did create jobs. Repeat after me: The Government NEVER creates jobs. Your thinking reflects a common fallacy so it's forgivable. How many jobs did the government have to destroy in order to "create" a new one. It's merely the government robbing Peter to pay Paul. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMS Posted July 2, 2007 Share Posted July 2, 2007 In The Progressive: put away the flags thread....someone listed out their top 4 Presidents. One of which was FDR. Instead of replying in that thread, I thought I'd start a new one about this article I ran across this morning which takes a different look at FDR and the New Deal.http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010281 We also spoke in the other thread about the revisionism numbers being thrown around involving an Invasion of the Japanese home islands, and how unreasonable the differences were between what was widely accepted in 1940-1950's and the myth of what has wormed it's way into history of the twenty first century. This article is historically flawed and misleading. It is certainly the product of revisionist history. Fact is by almost any measure the distinction between the Hover era and the Roosevelt era are profound. Some key dates to be aware off. (1) Hoover takes office. 3/1929 (2) Black Monday, start of the Great depression. 10/29/1929 ( beginning of Hovers term ). (3) FDR takes office. 3/1933 Down Hover.. Almost immediatly up FDR!! Again. Unemployment raising throughout the Hoovers 3 years in dealing with the depression. Almost an immediat improvement when FDR takes office. Note the country did have a relapse resession in 1938. Bank Suspensions Year.....................Numbers as of 12/31.........................Suspensions 1929...........................24,633.......................................659 1930...........................22,773.......................................1350 1931...........................19,970.......................................2293 1932...........................18,397.......................................1453 1933...........................15,015.......................................4000 1934...........................16,096.......................................57 Data are from Table V 20-30 in Historical Statistics of The United States: Colonial Times to 1970, 1975, p. 912. One can almost draw a line in the data the distinction is so clear between when FDR came into office and when Hoover Left office. I'm not saying FDR didn't make mistakes, he did. But his policies certainly produced results and Hoover's laissez fair coupled with tightening monetary policy certainly hurt. Many on the Right want to diminish FDR's contribution with rhetoric or a cursory review of the data. But these critism fall away when one looks at what happenned and the real numbers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMK9973 Posted July 2, 2007 Share Posted July 2, 2007 The Great Depression didn't start with the stock market. The SEC is a regulatory agency charged with watching out for criminal action by trading firms. The stock market provides a window into the economy of its listed companies. Repeat after me: The Government NEVER creates jobs. Your thinking reflects a common fallacy so it's forgivable. How many jobs did the government have to destroy in order to "create" a new one. It's merely the government robbing Peter to pay Paul. You've misread my posts. 1) I simply said the SEC was created as part of the New Deal and has helped ever since. Do you disagree? 2) I'm with you that the goverment doesn't create perment jobs. But they did create a lot of temp jobs during the depression that helped keep lots of family afloat until WWII. They didn't destory any jobs. There were ton's of land the US hadn't yet touched. They made up projects (Creation of National Parks. Buiding of Roads through wilderness) that didn't exisit before. Then they Paid people to do this work. That's a job. In fact -It's funny, but it was the heart of what Republicans asked for with Welfare reform. If the Goverment is going to hand out money, make the people do some work for it. That's what they did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMS Posted July 2, 2007 Share Posted July 2, 2007 In every measurable way, the New Deal was a tremendous failure. One of the greatest demonstrations of the folly of central planning. How can you justify price supports designed to hold prices up when half the population is starving? Or wage supports when a third of the population is unemployed?Most people (members of my own family included) argue vehemently that at least FDR "did something" or "made people feel better." Hogwash. Economics isn't about feelings. Just an incredible misinformed thing to say. Fact is farmers needed the price supports in order to make planting food profitable so they could be ensured a profit in a marketplace which was in failure. Employees needed the wage supports in order to get money back into the marketplace. The underlying problem in the depression wasn't unemployemnt or starvation, the underlying problem was nobody had any money because the stock market collapse had evaporated most of the private wealth in the country. In order to treat the symptoms you had to solve the underlying problem. Something FDR did, and something Hoover never attempted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMS Posted July 2, 2007 Share Posted July 2, 2007 Do you honestly believe that? Now I will say, FDR had to take drastic measures because of the horrible state of the nation at the time. But seriously, there was no hint of recovery until the US entered WW2 Wrong. Revisionist. Fact is Unemployment, GDP, and bank closeings are all economic indicators which were all in 180 degree turn around after the first year of the new deal. All of these indicators continued to worsen under Hoovers 3 years of attempting to address the Great Depression. The new deal was a revolutionary fix for an economy in free fall, and anybody who cares to look at the numbers rather than parrot fiction can come to no other conclusion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMS Posted July 2, 2007 Share Posted July 2, 2007 FDR's policies were not instrumental in getting people to have confidence in the economy againOnce America shifted towards a war economy, that's when all attitudes changed I do agree with you about confidence in institutions in general (Apology for me not being very clear in my post) :doh: US shifted to the war economy after Pearl Harbor in early 1942. A few months prior to Pearl Harbor not only weren't the US over spending on defense; the entire United States Army survived being disbanded by a single vote in congress! Unemployment had dropped more than 15% by the time American went to a War economy. GDP was up 43% from when Roosevelt took office almost back to pre 1929 levels. You don't even want me to bring up bank closings. Which averaged in the thousands yearly under Hoover(3 years in a row 1929-1932) but which Roosevelt had back down to low two digits in his first complete year year in office (1934). Your post aren't reasonable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckydevil Posted July 2, 2007 Share Posted July 2, 2007 I'm not saying FDR didn't make mistakes, he did. But his policies certainly produced results and Hoover's laissez fair Just another myth. The notion that Hoover was a laissez-faire president is absurd ( he also denounced laissez-faire). In fact, his policies laid the foundation for the New Deal. Anyone who studies history knows many FDR adivsors gave credit to Hoover for laying the ground work for the New Deal. There is a reason why FDR campaigned on limited and small government. Damn you Arthur Schlessinger. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riggo-toni Posted July 2, 2007 Share Posted July 2, 2007 Anyone interested in this topic should read Modern Times by Paul Johnson. It's a real eye-opener on the 20s and 30s. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMS Posted July 2, 2007 Share Posted July 2, 2007 Just another myth. Myth? I backed up my statements with hard data on GDP, unemployment, and bank closings. Three of the biggest economic indicators of the great depression era. How exactly can you claim my statements as myth without addressing the 180 degree turn these indicators took within the first days of the New Deal? You can't, so you didn't even try? The notion that Hoover was a laissez-faire president is absurd ( he also denounced laissez-faire). In fact, his policies laid the foundation for the New Deal. Anyone who studies history knows many FDR advisors gave credit to Hoover for laying the ground work for the New Deal. There is a reason why FDR campaigned on limited and small government. Hoover literally had nothing to do with the new deal. Not only didn't hoover lay the groundwork for the new deal, but after having lost the elections to FDR, Hoover tried to involve FDR in a series of "joint" economic reforms all of which FDR refused to be associated with. Hoover was the ultimate government insider. He had been secretary of commerse under two previous presidents ( Harding and Coolidge ) as well as a life long government beurocrat. Hoover believed he knew better than anybody else what would fix the economy and tried to pre-determine FDR's economic policies. Hoover literally drew up FDR's response to the depression, along the same lines Hoover himself used laissez-faire and demanded FDR sign them under the threat of worsening the depression. FDR demurred. You see the country had lost faith in Hoover, and everybody knew it except hoover. FDR had decided that it was therefore important to cut off all links with Hoover and be seen as doing something totolly new. Hense the name, "New Deal". Not only did FDR refuse to sign on to Hoover's policies, he wouldn't issue any joint statements, nor even be photographed with the outgoing President. When FDR did take office nobody knew what to expect. What the nation got was likely the most productive and dramatic first 100 days of any Presidency. It's still refferenced in aw by both Republicans and Democrates, but has never been duplicated. Hoover did implement classic Laissez-faire policies. He left wages, prices and business liquidation alone free from regulation to free fall. He believed and stated that propping up shaky positions postpones liquidation and aggravates unsound conditions. Hoover also tightened the money policy. "Propping up wage rates creates mass unemployment, and bolstering prices perpetuates and creates unsold surpluses." Worse still Hoover cut government spending because he believed in the Laissez fair truism that, "For government spending, whatever the label attached to it, is solely consumption; any cut in the budget therefore raises the investment-consumption ratio in the economy and allows more rapid validation of originally wasteful and loss-yielding projects." Fact is Hoover and FDR's policies were night and day. Hoover, "the great humanitarian" get's no credit for FDR's new deal. Not by any historian of note. But just as conservatives are actively involved in ripping down FDR, they are likewise involved in building up Hoover just to name one. Fact is what modern economists fault FDR for is not going far enough. FDR continued to try to balance the budget as he created work programs and plied the work force with help. Most modern economists believe FDR should have departed even more from Hoover's philosophy and also increased the national debt. More on Hoover. Hoover's presidency was dominated by the Great Depression that began with the collapse of the New York stock market in 1929. By the end of Hoover's term in office nearly a quarter of Americans were unemployed while 25% of all banks had failed leaving millions without savings. Hoover was unprepared for the extent of the economy's collapse but felt that the natural cycles of business would lead to an upturn in the economy's fortunes. His laissez-faire philosophy was ill suited for dealing with the depth of the crisis. His inactivity made him a symbol of the Depression as hundreds of thousands of people, homeless, lived in shanty towns dubbed 'Hoovervilles.' Although Hoover established the Reconstruction Finance Corporation in 1932 to loan government money to businesses he refused to sanction a programme of government works to direct aid to the unemployed. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/hoover_herbert.shtml Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Predicto Posted July 2, 2007 Share Posted July 2, 2007 Yeah, this is a "new" look at the New Deal. I think one of the job requirements for the past 20 years to get a job at a conservative thinktank has been to write exactly this piece as your master's thesis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMS Posted July 2, 2007 Share Posted July 2, 2007 Yeah, this is a "new" look at the New Deal.I think one of the job requirements for the past 20 years to get a job at a conservative thinktank has been to write exactly this piece as your master's thesis. Yeah it's not just Hoover who they are trying to rehabilitate. Have you checked out what the "modern" right is saying about Mccarthy and the Un American activities committee? It's enough to make me want to vomit in my own mouth. Oh also check out what they're saying about the Neo Conservatives. That they are former democrats, influenced by Woodrow Wilson who came to the Republicans. Not real Republicans at all.. :doh: There are so many folks out their actively trying to mislead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMS Posted July 3, 2007 Share Posted July 3, 2007 Man nobody wants to talk about the new deal? With so many different opinions out there, I thought somebody would want to discuss the discrepancies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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