UCLA: FDR Prolonged the Depression

You know, CF, whenever there is a post with pretty strong anti-lib data or thought, we find no takers from the left.

Understandable...

But I sort of have the feeling that I should kind of smooth out the criticism.

He was, after all the right man for the job, re: WWII.

And, I don't recall the source of the following, but you might agree with much of it:

"Who can now imagine a day when America offered no Social Security, no unemployment compensation, no food stamps, no Federal guarantee of bank deposits, no Federal supervision of the stock market, no Federal protection for collective bargaining, no Federal standards for wages and hours, no Federal support for farm prices or rural electrification, no Federal refinancing for farm and home mortgages, no Federal commitment to high employment or to equal opportunity - in short, no Federal responsibility for Americans who found themselves, through no fault of their own, in economic or social distress?"

Not too many of our Presidents have been all good or all bad...(until now...?)

That was part of it. It wasn't all of it.

As the President, he gets credit for everything that happens or fails to happen in this country. FDR was in office when the depression started and was in office when the depression ended. He was so enormously popular that he was elected by the American people four times. Obviously the people who really matter, those who lived through the matter have a different opinion.

It's funny watching you guys constantly trying to bash FDR's tangible accomplishments. It's silly.

It's funny that people are still blaming bush too then. Especially if the president gets the credit (blame) for everything that happens while he is in office.

FDR's policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate

“Roosevelt's role in lifting the nation out of the Great Depression has been so revered that Time magazine readers cited it in 1999 when naming him the 20th century's second-most influential figure.”

1. After scrutinizing Roosevelt's record for four years, Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian conclude in a new study that New Deal policies signed into law 71 years ago thwarted economic recovery for seven long years.

2. …we have always worried whether we would have another 10- to 15-year economic slump," said Ohanian, vice chair of UCLA's Department of Economics. "We found that a relapse isn't likely unless lawmakers gum up a recovery with ill-conceived stimulus policies."
3. …Ohanian and Cole blame specific anti-competition and pro-labor measures that Roosevelt promoted and signed into law June 16, 1933….Even after being deemed unconstitutional, Roosevelt's anti-competition policies persisted — albeit under a different guise, the scholars found.

4. "President Roosevelt believed that excessive competition was responsible for the Depression by reducing prices and wages, and by extension reducing employment and demand for goods and services," said Cole, also a UCLA professor of economics. "So he came up with a recovery package that would be unimaginable today, allowing businesses in every industry to collude without the threat of antitrust prosecution and workers to demand salaries about 25 percent above where they ought to have been, given market forces. The economy was poised for a beautiful recovery, but that recovery was stalled by these misguided policies."

5. Cole and Ohanian calculate that NIRA and its aftermath account for 60 percent of the weak recovery. Without the policies, they contend that the Depression would have ended in 1936 instead of the year when they believe the slump actually ended: 1943.

6. "The fact that the Depression dragged on for years convinced generations of economists and policy-makers that capitalism could not be trusted to recover from depressions and that significant government intervention was required to achieve good outcomes," Cole said. "Ironically, our work shows that the recovery would have been very rapid had the government not intervened."
FDR's policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate / UCLA Newsroom

(emphasis mine throughout)

OMG- another liberal icon bites the dust...
we need emergency intervention for our liberal friends!

Bush is still relevant as we are still early in the Obama administration and he was the last guy that held the office for 8 years.

That being said, Obama is in charge now and he can't make a habit out of blaming Bush. However, it's totally appropriate to point out that Bush's mismanagement of Afghanistan is part of the reason we have problems there today.

You know the definition of a Convention of Economists, PC?

It's a room with filled with 500 men with watches, NONE of whom can give you the correct time.

So an economist at UCLA thinks FDR made the depression worse? I certainly do not doubt that. And there's probably another UCLA economist in the same department who completely disagrees, too

If these economist (all of them) actually KNEW how economies worked, don't you think they'd ALL already be billionaires?

Economics is NOT chemistry, it's not physics, it's not mechanical sciences. It's NOT a hard science, its a SOCIAL science (with a lot of highly dubious numbers)

If economics was the kind of science that could make pronouncments that could be duplicated in a lab by other economists, then our economy wouldn't be the mess it is.

Economist are more like historians than accounts, dude.

Accountants can have any other accountant come to the exact same conclusion if they have the same books.

Economist can't even agree what the numbers are, let along what they mean.

Ah so you like to have it both ways.

typical libby.

Too bad the only way FDR got us out of the depression was WWII.

Either way, it's irrefutable that FDR got the United States out of the depression. Furthermore, the depression was much more than an economic collapse. It was also a massive drought in the Midwest. Comparing it with other nation's "depressions" is apples and oranges.

With the benefit of retrospect, some economists might project that the New Deal wasn't 100% efficient. That's not surprising. It's also not terribly convincing. Economics is not an exact science and, simply focusing on policy ignores other factors of the presidency, and in the end, the results are all that matters.

FDR was the only person that was willing and able to get us out of the depression. Hoover believed in non-intervention and greatly compounded the problem. The whole "do nothing and the invisible hand of the market will fix it!" mentality had been tried with disastrous results.

Out of curiosity, what economic factors associated with World War II do you credit with ending the depression? Budget-balancing and a reliance on laissez faire capitalism?

"...irrefutable ..."

Very nice word, and certainly an upgrade for you!

Sadly, you don't know what the word means, as the OP does exactly the reverse of the term.

Unless you are ready to deny that the depression lasted longer here, under the FDR policies, than under nations that chose a less ideological fix...

But, kudos, for the choice of a new avatar. Far more adult...

now if you could only do something about the name...

Uh no. If you can't get the importance of time to this matter than it's no wonder you were lost.

Here's a good point: Clinton could have done more to get Bin Ladin. So he shares some culpability in 9-11 that happened under his immediate predecessor. The bulk of the matter is still on W., who was in office at the time.

FDR, on the other hand, can't be blamed for the matter.