How This Happened

[Kevin_Kennedy]

I see. We came out of WW2 poorer than we went in, right? On one hand, you insist the massive spending of WW2 was what ended the Depression, on the other, that government spending does not help. Pretty damn big contradiction in your own words. Basically, all your views on history seem to be driven by ideology, with little referance to reality.

Tell me where I insisted that the massive spending of WW2 ended the Depression.

 

[Paulie]

Then go post your ideas there.
Get back with us when you are done so we can go read it?

Why would I go post at a site I barely even lend credence to, to begin with?

What's funny is you still haven't provided any factual research to back your claims. All you're armed with is Wiki and your opinions. Do you realize how weak that is?

There's been numerous posts here with links to accredited reseach on the subject of the Great Depression, its origins, causes, what prolonged it, etc.

The information is there if you're willing to open your mind to the possibilities. I think you're dead set on the New Deal being the savior, because that's what you WANT. No amount of research otherwise is going to change your mind. That's why you go to Wiki, it's the easy way out and it tells you what you want to hear, nevermind who might be providing the information contained at its site.

 

[Truthmatters]

Were there laws and regulations made of the different industries made during FDRs term in an attempt to prevent a reacurance of the lead up?

 

[Paulie]

Were there laws and regulations made of the different industries made during FDRs term in an attempt to prevent a reacurance of the lead up?

I'm not usually one to criticize grammar and spelling, but I'm having a hard time taking you seriously enough to debate an issue like this, while you're butchering basic words and sentences.

I feel like I'm talking to an underachieving high school kid.

I'm done with this discussion. You can have the last word.

 

[Truthmatters]

You saw what was coming huh?

 

[Truthmatters]

The regulations set in this time worked quite well for decades. They were finnally stripped completely by GTLB 1999 act and just a couple of years later the sub prime mess was in full swing.

Those regulations saved our democracy at the time and prevented another GD. It also made the US a place in which the average joe had a chance to build wealth. The average joe is the furnace which keeps Capitalism strong and without a strong middle class you have no one to buy the products produced. All of mans history is replete with examples of the wealthy hording wealth at the expense of the greater economys health which creates an atmoshere in which the average Joe seeks a different form of government to protect himself.
Without curbing the hording of wealth you end up with revolt. The regulations saved Democracy.

 

[Paulie]

Surprise surprise, more opinions.

 

[Truthmatters]

I see. We came out of WW2 poorer than we went in, right? On one hand, you insist the massive spending of WW2 was what ended the Depression, on the other, that government spending does not help. Pretty damn big contradiction in your own words. Basically, all your views on history seem to be driven by ideology, with little referance to reality.

Amazing non logic huh?

 

[Truthmatters]

Surprise surprise, more opinions.

What have YOU offered in this post?

Your own opinions and Rockwells.

Silly thing.

 

[Paulie]

I didn't offer an opinion on anything other than your own. I never engaged the topic to opine on it, because it's been beaten to death in this place. Like I said, there's been many a post here on the subject, with more than enough factual research from accredited sources. You just prefer to stick with Wiki, and your ideological opinions. That's fine. Just don't expect people to take you seriously, that's all.

The fact that you STILL haven't provided any facts tells me you've studied this subject on an extremely limited basis.

 

[Truthmatters]

No facts?

you are just plain goofy

 

[Truthmatters]

Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999

Now go check this against what wiki has on the subject and get back to us.

wiki is a good basic source and everything on it is linked.

This is exactly why it has been purposely sabatoged in the past so that people like you could trash it.

 

[Paulie]

Oh for christ's fucking sake

You haven't provided anything except wiki's version of Glass Steagal, and your opinion on GLB. Otherwise, it's just your typical "we need regulations or we all get screwed" bullshit.

Here, I'll humor you. Let's start with the two UCLA economists who concluded in a calculated study that FDR prolonged the depression:

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

Two UCLA economists say they have figured out why the Great Depression dragged on for almost 15 years, and they blame a suspect previously thought to be beyond reproach: President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

"Why the Great Depression lasted so long has always been a great mystery, and because we never really knew the reason, 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."

"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."

Using data collected in 1929 by the Conference Board and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Cole and Ohanian were able to establish average wages and prices across a range of industries just prior to the Depression. By adjusting for annual increases in productivity, they were able to use the 1929 benchmark to figure out what prices and wages would have been during every year of the Depression had Roosevelt's policies not gone into effect. They then compared those figures with actual prices and wages as reflected in the Conference Board data.

In the three years following the implementation of Roosevelt's policies, wages in 11 key industries averaged 25 percent higher than they otherwise would have done, the economists calculate. But unemployment was also 25 percent higher than it should have been, given gains in productivity.

Meanwhile, prices across 19 industries averaged 23 percent above where they should have been, given the state of the economy. With goods and services that much harder for consumers to afford, demand stalled and the gross national product floundered at 27 percent below where it otherwise might have been.

"High wages and high prices in an economic slump run contrary to everything we know about market forces in economic downturns," Ohanian said. "As we've seen in the past several years, salaries and prices fall when unemployment is high. By artificially inflating both, the New Deal policies short-circuited the market's self-correcting forces."

The policies were contained in the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), which exempted industries from antitrust prosecution if they agreed to enter into collective bargaining agreements that significantly raised wages. Because protection from antitrust prosecution all but ensured higher prices for goods and services, a wide range of industries took the bait, Cole and Ohanian found. By 1934 more than 500 industries, which accounted for nearly 80 percent of private, non-agricultural employment, had entered into the collective bargaining agreements called for under NIRA.

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.

The number of antitrust cases brought by the Department of Justice fell from an average of 12.5 cases per year during the 1920s to an average of 6.5 cases per year from 1935 to 1938, the scholars found. Collusion had become so widespread that one Department of Interior official complained of receiving identical bids from a protected industry (steel) on 257 different occasions between mid-1935 and mid-1936. The bids were not only identical but also 50 percent higher than foreign steel prices. Without competition, wholesale prices remained inflated, averaging 14 percent higher than they would have been without the troublesome practices, the UCLA economists calculate.

NIRA's labor provisions, meanwhile, were strengthened in the National Relations Act, signed into law in 1935. As union membership doubled, so did labor's bargaining power, rising from 14 million strike days in 1936 to about 28 million in 1937. By 1939 wages in protected industries remained 24 percent to 33 percent above where they should have been, based on 1929 figures, Cole and Ohanian calculate. Unemployment persisted. By 1939 the U.S. unemployment rate was 17.2 percent, down somewhat from its 1933 peak of 24.9 percent but still remarkably high. By comparison, in May 2003, the unemployment rate of 6.1 percent was the highest in nine years.

Recovery came only after the Department of Justice dramatically stepped enforcement of antitrust cases nearly four-fold and organized labor suffered a string of setbacks, the economists found.

"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."

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Amazing non logic huh?

Since you agree with that little statement, I'll ask you provide the post where I insisted that the massive spending of WW2 ended the Depression. Thank you.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

What have YOU offered in this post?

Your own opinions and Rockwells.

Silly thing.

Actually, as the original poster, I offered Rockwell's opinion, not Paulitics.

 

[Paulie]

Shhh, don't bother her, she's digesting new material at the moment

 

[WillowTree]

I don't know squat about economics, but I heard the guru's on the TV say this guy knew what the hell he was talking about..it's a wiki link though. Edited to add, the guru's point was obamalama was going to make a massive mistake if he followed through on his economic plans.


Milton Friedman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Truthmatters]

Election of 1936

Here is the evidence of the fact that many Americans of all socioeconomic backgrounds supported the new deal. Wiki was just stating fact on that one.

 

[Paulie]

Election of 1936

Here is the evidence of the fact that many Americans of all socioeconomic backgrounds supported the new deal. Wiki was just stating fact on that one.

We're not debating how many people supported it dummy, we're debating whether or not it worked.

Evidence shows it didn't.

I gave you a link to a factual study done by UCLA economists, and you give stats on random nobodies who thought the new deal was cool.

Seriously truth, you're out of your league.

 

[Truthmatters]

Government spending helps nothing.

This is what that poster was remarking on.