The Roosevelt Myths vs. The Facts

[Camp]

library.uoregon.edu/ec/wguthrie/dustbowl.html

www.thegreatdepressioncauses.com/dust-bowl/

drought.unl.edu/DroughtBasics/DustBowl/EconomicsoftheDustBowl.aspx

Three more links of University academic level to support the facts and impacts of the Dust Bowl storms in the Great Depression.

 

[regent]

Hey....Cramp.....where did you go???

Here's another quote that figured prominently in a post of mine...


"d.Here's the money-quote, from the Roosevelt administration itslf:

Roosevelt’s Sec’y of the Interior, Harold Ickes, proclaimed:“What we are doing in this country were some of the things that were being done in Russia and even some things that were being done under Hitler in Germany.” Confirmed:Roosevelt Ended the Great Depression… When He Died"


How come you left this one out, too????


So far we have the 'four tops'.....Roosevelt, Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini!!!!


I'm beltin' 'em out of the park!!!!!

Looks like you are debating yourself. Nations affected by the Great Depression after the American market crash of 1929 and its impact into the 1930's looked at all the efforts made by different nations to reform and reinforce their economies that were totally dependent on free market capitalism and suffered for being so dependent on that free market capitalism. That led to the adoption of socialist-like policies and programs at various levels of governance and at various degrees of blending into the wished for better controlled and regulated free market capitalism. Germany and Italy turned into totalitarian nightmares and got trampled into the dungheap of losers in history while the USA under FDR turned into the strongest economy with the most powerful military in history. FDR knew which programs to keep and which ones to throw away while he kept the populace secure as possible and preserved democracy. America under the guidance of FDR won both against the depression and WWll. Italy and Germany, not so much. Stalin stayed in the game, but at the expense of tens of millions of USSR citizens. These facts are the ones that are real, not that dopey conspiracy theory crap you push while you to try and revise history.

Germany has already begun to adopt New Deal type programs such as Old Age insurance....in 1889.

Lot of good that did them. They knew which programs to keep....?????

Yep.

The intellectual descendants of those who worshipped Bismarck’s Prussia or Mussolini’s Ministry of Corporations, namely the New Dealers…latched on to the lodestar of 'enlightened economic policy'….in a quest for the holy grail of government-business ‘collaboration.’

It's corporatism, crony capitalism, and collectivism.

Turns out that 'spreading the wealth' is the recipe for failure.

It was not worshipping. It was intellectual experimentation and a search for pragmatic solutions. It is easy to look back and bloviate about how if some other policies or programs were used things would have turned out better. The trouble is that that is nothing more than self-aggrandizing speculative opinionating with no attempt to outline what policies and programs, efforts and plans would have done better or resolved the problems of the day.
FDR came into office with the worst economy in American history. So bad it saw stock brokers diving out of high rise Wall Street building and masses of citizens completely dependent on soup kitchens. While this was happening the Axis nations were building huge technologically advanced militaries that threatened the very survival of America.
In 12 years FDR managed to end the depression and beat America's enemies, in large part by his insightful support of developing advanced weapons that including advanced aircraft carriers and aircraft. From the atom bomb to the Garand infantry rifle, FDR guided the development of the weapons that shortened the war, reduced American casualties and brought victory against both Germany and Japan, resulting in America becoming the richest and most powerful nation in world history. But of course, there are those today that claim they could have done a better job, they just can explain how.

"FDR came into office with the worst economy in American history."

Really?

Or....did he make it the worst?


1. "America’s greatest depression fighter was Warren Gamaliel Harding. An Ohio senator when he was elected president in 1920, he followed Woodrow Wilson who got America into World War I, ...Harding inherited the mess, in particular the post-World War I depression – almost as severe, from peak to trough, as the Great Contraction from 1929 to 1933, that FDR inherited and prolonged.

2. Richard K. Vedder and Lowell E. Gallaway, in their book Out of Work (1993), noted that the magnitude of the 1920 depression "exceeded that for the Great Depression of the following decade for several quarters." The estimated gross national product plunged 24% from $91.5 billion in 1920 to $69.6 billion in 1921. The number of unemployed people jumped from 2.1 million in 1920 to 4.9 million in 1921.

3. Compared to FDR, Harding had a much better understanding of how an economy works. Harding, wrote historian Robert K. Murray, in The Harding Era (1969), "always decried high taxes, government waste, and excessive governmental interference in the private sector of the economy. In February 1920, shortly after announcing his candidacy, he advocated a cut in government expenditures and stated that government ought to ‘strike the shackles from industry.’ ‘We need vastly more freedom than we do regulation,’ he said. Surprisingly, big business took very little notice of him at the time."

4. With Harding’s tax cuts, spending cuts and relatively non-interventionist economic policy, the gross national product rebounded to $74.1 billion in 1922. The number of unemployed fell to 2.8 million – a reported 6.7% of the labor force – in 1922. So, just a year and a half after Harding became president, the Roaring 20s were underway! The unemployment rate continued to decline, reaching a low of 1.8% in 1926 – an extraordinary feat. Since then, the unemployment rate has been lower only once in wartime (1944), and never in peacetime."
America’s Greatest Depression*Fighter by Jim Powell

http://archive.lewrockwell.com/orig4/powell-jim4.html

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/226645/not-so-great-depression/jim-powell



So...I must ask again....and demand an answer:
Are you a fool or a liar????


Speak up!

Well you did remind me of H.L. Menken writing about Harding calling Harding the bloviator. Menken also included a line from a Harding speech, and it would be rude not to include it in any mention of Harding and Menken:

"I would like government to do all it can to mitigate, then, in understanding, in mutuality of interest, in concern for the common good, our tasks will be solved."
I wonder where historians rate Harding?

 

[Sun Devil 92]

Looks like you are debating yourself. Nations affected by the Great Depression after the American market crash of 1929 and its impact into the 1930's looked at all the efforts made by different nations to reform and reinforce their economies that were totally dependent on free market capitalism and suffered for being so dependent on that free market capitalism. That led to the adoption of socialist-like policies and programs at various levels of governance and at various degrees of blending into the wished for better controlled and regulated free market capitalism. Germany and Italy turned into totalitarian nightmares and got trampled into the dungheap of losers in history while the USA under FDR turned into the strongest economy with the most powerful military in history. FDR knew which programs to keep and which ones to throw away while he kept the populace secure as possible and preserved democracy. America under the guidance of FDR won both against the depression and WWll. Italy and Germany, not so much. Stalin stayed in the game, but at the expense of tens of millions of USSR citizens. These facts are the ones that are real, not that dopey conspiracy theory crap you push while you to try and revise history.

Germany has already begun to adopt New Deal type programs such as Old Age insurance....in 1889.

Lot of good that did them. They knew which programs to keep....?????

Yep.

The intellectual descendants of those who worshipped Bismarck’s Prussia or Mussolini’s Ministry of Corporations, namely the New Dealers…latched on to the lodestar of 'enlightened economic policy'….in a quest for the holy grail of government-business ‘collaboration.’

It's corporatism, crony capitalism, and collectivism.

Turns out that 'spreading the wealth' is the recipe for failure.

It was not worshipping. It was intellectual experimentation and a search for pragmatic solutions. It is easy to look back and bloviate about how if some other policies or programs were used things would have turned out better. The trouble is that that is nothing more than self-aggrandizing speculative opinionating with no attempt to outline what policies and programs, efforts and plans would have done better or resolved the problems of the day.
FDR came into office with the worst economy in American history. So bad it saw stock brokers diving out of high rise Wall Street building and masses of citizens completely dependent on soup kitchens. While this was happening the Axis nations were building huge technologically advanced militaries that threatened the very survival of America.
In 12 years FDR managed to end the depression and beat America's enemies, in large part by his insightful support of developing advanced weapons that including advanced aircraft carriers and aircraft. From the atom bomb to the Garand infantry rifle, FDR guided the development of the weapons that shortened the war, reduced American casualties and brought victory against both Germany and Japan, resulting in America becoming the richest and most powerful nation in world history. But of course, there are those today that claim they could have done a better job, they just can explain how.

"FDR came into office with the worst economy in American history."

Really?

Or....did he make it the worst?


1. "America’s greatest depression fighter was Warren Gamaliel Harding. An Ohio senator when he was elected president in 1920, he followed Woodrow Wilson who got America into World War I, ...Harding inherited the mess, in particular the post-World War I depression – almost as severe, from peak to trough, as the Great Contraction from 1929 to 1933, that FDR inherited and prolonged.

2. Richard K. Vedder and Lowell E. Gallaway, in their book Out of Work (1993), noted that the magnitude of the 1920 depression "exceeded that for the Great Depression of the following decade for several quarters." The estimated gross national product plunged 24% from $91.5 billion in 1920 to $69.6 billion in 1921. The number of unemployed people jumped from 2.1 million in 1920 to 4.9 million in 1921.

3. Compared to FDR, Harding had a much better understanding of how an economy works. Harding, wrote historian Robert K. Murray, in The Harding Era (1969), "always decried high taxes, government waste, and excessive governmental interference in the private sector of the economy. In February 1920, shortly after announcing his candidacy, he advocated a cut in government expenditures and stated that government ought to ‘strike the shackles from industry.’ ‘We need vastly more freedom than we do regulation,’ he said. Surprisingly, big business took very little notice of him at the time."

4. With Harding’s tax cuts, spending cuts and relatively non-interventionist economic policy, the gross national product rebounded to $74.1 billion in 1922. The number of unemployed fell to 2.8 million – a reported 6.7% of the labor force – in 1922. So, just a year and a half after Harding became president, the Roaring 20s were underway! The unemployment rate continued to decline, reaching a low of 1.8% in 1926 – an extraordinary feat. Since then, the unemployment rate has been lower only once in wartime (1944), and never in peacetime."
America’s Greatest Depression*Fighter by Jim Powell

http://archive.lewrockwell.com/orig4/powell-jim4.html

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/226645/not-so-great-depression/jim-powell



So...I must ask again....and demand an answer:
Are you a fool or a liar????


Speak up!

Well you did remind me of H.L. Menken writing about Harding calling Harding the bloviator. Menken also included a line from a Harding speech, and it would be rude not to include it in any mention of Harding and Menken:

"I would like government to do all it can to mitigate, then, in understanding, in mutuality of interest, in concern for the common good, our tasks will be solved."
I wonder where historians rate Harding?

Who cares ?

Harding was very popular while he was president.

It was the scandals of his administration that have cost him in history.

 

[Socratesrevenge]

The very first fireside chat by Roosevelt, stated, 'this is what the bankers are doing to fix it'.

 

[regent]

.

Roosevelt made damn sure people had very little his first two terms

States were responsible for relief but they could no longer afford it, so the national government stepped in feeding people. But FDR wanted people to work so programs were started WPA, PWA, CCC and so forth so that people earned their money. Highways, airports, post offices, parks, schools, dams and TVA were built but the people had to work for their money. Kids no longer went through garbage dumps looking for food as they had before FDR. No wonder the people voted for FDR four times in a row and might still be voting for him--but he died.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

.

Roosevelt made damn sure people had very little his first two terms

States were responsible for relief but they could no longer afford it, so the national government stepped in feeding people. But FDR wanted people to work so programs were started WPA, PWA, CCC and so forth so that people earned their money. Highways, airports, post offices, parks, schools, dams and TVA were built but the people had to work for their money. Kids no longer went through garbage dumps looking for food as they had before FDR. No wonder the people voted for FDR four times in a row and might still be voting for him--but he died.

FDR loved keeping people dependent on government for their survival. People who voted for him were terrified that he would starve them to death like his mentor Uncle Joe killed the Kulaks

 

[Camp]

.

Roosevelt made damn sure people had very little his first two terms

States were responsible for relief but they could no longer afford it, so the national government stepped in feeding people. But FDR wanted people to work so programs were started WPA, PWA, CCC and so forth so that people earned their money. Highways, airports, post offices, parks, schools, dams and TVA were built but the people had to work for their money. Kids no longer went through garbage dumps looking for food as they had before FDR. No wonder the people voted for FDR four times in a row and might still be voting for him--but he died.

New Deal accomplishments are benefiting us to this very day and will continue to do so far into the future. Thousands of examples like the one I am providing links to in this post are scattered across the nation in every state. Infrastructure created, built and paid for over 75 years ago. The legacy of FDR is not a myth.

Here is a theater that still serves the city of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. When it was built it provided jobs for the unemployed. It continues to provide jobs for Tuscaloosa today.

livingnewdeal.org/projects/bama

The project and how it serves today

bamatheatre.org/history.php

 

[CrusaderFrank]

The very first fireside chat by Roosevelt, stated, 'this is what the bankers are doing to fix it'.

...and then FDR made the Depression last his entire first 2 terms, only saved by the start of WWII

 

[CrusaderFrank]

.

Roosevelt made damn sure people had very little his first two terms

States were responsible for relief but they could no longer afford it, so the national government stepped in feeding people. But FDR wanted people to work so programs were started WPA, PWA, CCC and so forth so that people earned their money. Highways, airports, post offices, parks, schools, dams and TVA were built but the people had to work for their money. Kids no longer went through garbage dumps looking for food as they had before FDR. No wonder the people voted for FDR four times in a row and might still be voting for him--but he died.

New Deal accomplishments are benefiting us to this very day and will continue to do so far into the future. Thousands of examples like the one I am providing links to in this post are scattered across the nation in every state. Infrastructure created, built and paid for over 75 years ago. The legacy of FDR is not a myth.

Here is a theater that still serves the city of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. When it was built it provided jobs for the unemployed. It continues to provide jobs for Tuscaloosa today.

livingnewdeal.org/projects/bama

The project and how it serves today

bamatheatre.org/history.php

Sounds like Obama's Failed Shovel-Ready Stimulus

 

[PoliticalChic]

Looks like you are debating yourself. Nations affected by the Great Depression after the American market crash of 1929 and its impact into the 1930's looked at all the efforts made by different nations to reform and reinforce their economies that were totally dependent on free market capitalism and suffered for being so dependent on that free market capitalism. That led to the adoption of socialist-like policies and programs at various levels of governance and at various degrees of blending into the wished for better controlled and regulated free market capitalism. Germany and Italy turned into totalitarian nightmares and got trampled into the dungheap of losers in history while the USA under FDR turned into the strongest economy with the most powerful military in history. FDR knew which programs to keep and which ones to throw away while he kept the populace secure as possible and preserved democracy. America under the guidance of FDR won both against the depression and WWll. Italy and Germany, not so much. Stalin stayed in the game, but at the expense of tens of millions of USSR citizens. These facts are the ones that are real, not that dopey conspiracy theory crap you push while you to try and revise history.

Germany has already begun to adopt New Deal type programs such as Old Age insurance....in 1889.

Lot of good that did them. They knew which programs to keep....?????

Yep.

The intellectual descendants of those who worshipped Bismarck’s Prussia or Mussolini’s Ministry of Corporations, namely the New Dealers…latched on to the lodestar of 'enlightened economic policy'….in a quest for the holy grail of government-business ‘collaboration.’

It's corporatism, crony capitalism, and collectivism.

Turns out that 'spreading the wealth' is the recipe for failure.

It was not worshipping. It was intellectual experimentation and a search for pragmatic solutions. It is easy to look back and bloviate about how if some other policies or programs were used things would have turned out better. The trouble is that that is nothing more than self-aggrandizing speculative opinionating with no attempt to outline what policies and programs, efforts and plans would have done better or resolved the problems of the day.
FDR came into office with the worst economy in American history. So bad it saw stock brokers diving out of high rise Wall Street building and masses of citizens completely dependent on soup kitchens. While this was happening the Axis nations were building huge technologically advanced militaries that threatened the very survival of America.
In 12 years FDR managed to end the depression and beat America's enemies, in large part by his insightful support of developing advanced weapons that including advanced aircraft carriers and aircraft. From the atom bomb to the Garand infantry rifle, FDR guided the development of the weapons that shortened the war, reduced American casualties and brought victory against both Germany and Japan, resulting in America becoming the richest and most powerful nation in world history. But of course, there are those today that claim they could have done a better job, they just can explain how.

"FDR came into office with the worst economy in American history."

Really?

Or....did he make it the worst?


1. "America’s greatest depression fighter was Warren Gamaliel Harding. An Ohio senator when he was elected president in 1920, he followed Woodrow Wilson who got America into World War I, ...Harding inherited the mess, in particular the post-World War I depression – almost as severe, from peak to trough, as the Great Contraction from 1929 to 1933, that FDR inherited and prolonged.

2. Richard K. Vedder and Lowell E. Gallaway, in their book Out of Work (1993), noted that the magnitude of the 1920 depression "exceeded that for the Great Depression of the following decade for several quarters." The estimated gross national product plunged 24% from $91.5 billion in 1920 to $69.6 billion in 1921. The number of unemployed people jumped from 2.1 million in 1920 to 4.9 million in 1921.

3. Compared to FDR, Harding had a much better understanding of how an economy works. Harding, wrote historian Robert K. Murray, in The Harding Era (1969), "always decried high taxes, government waste, and excessive governmental interference in the private sector of the economy. In February 1920, shortly after announcing his candidacy, he advocated a cut in government expenditures and stated that government ought to ‘strike the shackles from industry.’ ‘We need vastly more freedom than we do regulation,’ he said. Surprisingly, big business took very little notice of him at the time."

4. With Harding’s tax cuts, spending cuts and relatively non-interventionist economic policy, the gross national product rebounded to $74.1 billion in 1922. The number of unemployed fell to 2.8 million – a reported 6.7% of the labor force – in 1922. So, just a year and a half after Harding became president, the Roaring 20s were underway! The unemployment rate continued to decline, reaching a low of 1.8% in 1926 – an extraordinary feat. Since then, the unemployment rate has been lower only once in wartime (1944), and never in peacetime."
America’s Greatest Depression*Fighter by Jim Powell

http://archive.lewrockwell.com/orig4/powell-jim4.html

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/226645/not-so-great-depression/jim-powell



So...I must ask again....and demand an answer:
Are you a fool or a liar????


Speak up!

Well you did remind me of H.L. Menken writing about Harding calling Harding the bloviator. Menken also included a line from a Harding speech, and it would be rude not to include it in any mention of Harding and Menken:

"I would like government to do all it can to mitigate, then, in understanding, in mutuality of interest, in concern for the common good, our tasks will be solved."
I wonder where historians rate Harding?

One can be a bloviator and still be far more successful in domestic policy than a fraud and dictator-wanna be who was elected four time.

The evidence is clear: even you have to admit that solving the recession/Depression in 1-2 years is far, far better than extending it a decade.


Do you need 'decade' defined?


After you look up that definition....look up "Roaring Twenties."

 

[PoliticalChic]

The very first fireside chat by Roosevelt, stated, 'this is what the bankers are doing to fix it'.

Welcome to the board, Soc....

I would appreciate it if you could articulate your position, view, understanding of the era.

 

[PoliticalChic]

.

Roosevelt made damn sure people had very little his first two terms

States were responsible for relief but they could no longer afford it, so the national government stepped in feeding people. But FDR wanted people to work so programs were started WPA, PWA, CCC and so forth so that people earned their money. Highways, airports, post offices, parks, schools, dams and TVA were built but the people had to work for their money. Kids no longer went through garbage dumps looking for food as they had before FDR. No wonder the people voted for FDR four times in a row and might still be voting for him--but he died.

Now for your education....

Is it possible that a politician could care so little for this nation that he would shred the national character to accrue power???

Introducing Franklin Roosevelt.
He nationalized charity, welfare....giving us the cottage industry we have today.

1. But wait, you say....the Depression was exceptional! Some the million unemployed??? How would they survive? "[Hoover] was heartened by the work of private charities in handling the overwhelming number....As of the fall of 1931, and into 1932, Americans raised over $100 million for charity..."
"Federal Aid for Relief (Columbia University Studies in the Social Sciences), "by Edward A. Williams, p. 33.


2. From the earliest times following the inception of the United States charity was a local function: civic leaders, clergy, and private citizens carefully considered the legitimacy of people's needs. Such was the tradition: the face-to-face benefitted both the receiver and the giver. It discouraged laziness and a poor work ethic.
"A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada,"by Mark A. Noll

a. The Founders saw charity as local and as voluntary, nor did the Constitution provide a roll for the federal government.


3. “No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity."
James Madison, Federalist #10

a. Madison was warning that if relief were to become a federal function, politicians and deadbeats would trade votes for food stamps.

b. "Living Constitution" judges feel that they can rewrite, or substitute their views for the Founders because they are so much wiser.....read the above and consider that view.

4. For a lesson in handling such attempts, consider "Texas Seed Bill" (February 16, 1887) ... Members of Congress wanted to help suffering farmers in the American West, but Cleveland rejected their bill, citing the limited mission of the general government and arguing that private charity and already-existing government programs should furnish the necessary aid..... the lesson should be constantly enforced that, though the people support the government, the government should not support the people." Veto of the Texas Seed Bill
"After vetoing the bill, he encouraged newspapers to carry the story. This may shock some of you, butover $100,000 in private donationsflowed in to the farmers of West Texas. " Texas Seed Bill, Chris Christie is No Cleveland


5. Oh...and Roosevelt?

Economist Jim Powell, in “FDR’s Folly,” notes that a disproportionate amount of FDR’s relief and public works spending “went not to the poorest states such as the South, but to western states were people were better off , apparently because there were ‘swing’ states which could yield FDR more votes in the next election.”

That basis for charity and welfare continues to this day!

 

[Camp]

Germany has already begun to adopt New Deal type programs such as Old Age insurance....in 1889.

Lot of good that did them. They knew which programs to keep....?????

Yep.

The intellectual descendants of those who worshipped Bismarck’s Prussia or Mussolini’s Ministry of Corporations, namely the New Dealers…latched on to the lodestar of 'enlightened economic policy'….in a quest for the holy grail of government-business ‘collaboration.’

It's corporatism, crony capitalism, and collectivism.

Turns out that 'spreading the wealth' is the recipe for failure.

It was not worshipping. It was intellectual experimentation and a search for pragmatic solutions. It is easy to look back and bloviate about how if some other policies or programs were used things would have turned out better. The trouble is that that is nothing more than self-aggrandizing speculative opinionating with no attempt to outline what policies and programs, efforts and plans would have done better or resolved the problems of the day.
FDR came into office with the worst economy in American history. So bad it saw stock brokers diving out of high rise Wall Street building and masses of citizens completely dependent on soup kitchens. While this was happening the Axis nations were building huge technologically advanced militaries that threatened the very survival of America.
In 12 years FDR managed to end the depression and beat America's enemies, in large part by his insightful support of developing advanced weapons that including advanced aircraft carriers and aircraft. From the atom bomb to the Garand infantry rifle, FDR guided the development of the weapons that shortened the war, reduced American casualties and brought victory against both Germany and Japan, resulting in America becoming the richest and most powerful nation in world history. But of course, there are those today that claim they could have done a better job, they just can explain how.

"FDR came into office with the worst economy in American history."

Really?

Or....did he make it the worst?


1. "America’s greatest depression fighter was Warren Gamaliel Harding. An Ohio senator when he was elected president in 1920, he followed Woodrow Wilson who got America into World War I, ...Harding inherited the mess, in particular the post-World War I depression – almost as severe, from peak to trough, as the Great Contraction from 1929 to 1933, that FDR inherited and prolonged.

2. Richard K. Vedder and Lowell E. Gallaway, in their book Out of Work (1993), noted that the magnitude of the 1920 depression "exceeded that for the Great Depression of the following decade for several quarters." The estimated gross national product plunged 24% from $91.5 billion in 1920 to $69.6 billion in 1921. The number of unemployed people jumped from 2.1 million in 1920 to 4.9 million in 1921.

3. Compared to FDR, Harding had a much better understanding of how an economy works. Harding, wrote historian Robert K. Murray, in The Harding Era (1969), "always decried high taxes, government waste, and excessive governmental interference in the private sector of the economy. In February 1920, shortly after announcing his candidacy, he advocated a cut in government expenditures and stated that government ought to ‘strike the shackles from industry.’ ‘We need vastly more freedom than we do regulation,’ he said. Surprisingly, big business took very little notice of him at the time."

4. With Harding’s tax cuts, spending cuts and relatively non-interventionist economic policy, the gross national product rebounded to $74.1 billion in 1922. The number of unemployed fell to 2.8 million – a reported 6.7% of the labor force – in 1922. So, just a year and a half after Harding became president, the Roaring 20s were underway! The unemployment rate continued to decline, reaching a low of 1.8% in 1926 – an extraordinary feat. Since then, the unemployment rate has been lower only once in wartime (1944), and never in peacetime."
America’s Greatest Depression*Fighter by Jim Powell

http://archive.lewrockwell.com/orig4/powell-jim4.html

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/226645/not-so-great-depression/jim-powell



So...I must ask again....and demand an answer:
Are you a fool or a liar????


Speak up!

Well you did remind me of H.L. Menken writing about Harding calling Harding the bloviator. Menken also included a line from a Harding speech, and it would be rude not to include it in any mention of Harding and Menken:

"I would like government to do all it can to mitigate, then, in understanding, in mutuality of interest, in concern for the common good, our tasks will be solved."
I wonder where historians rate Harding?

One can be a bloviator and still be far more successful in domestic policy than a fraud and dictator-wanna be who was elected four time.

The evidence is clear: even you have to admit that solving the recession/Depression in 1-2 years is far, far better than extending it a decade.


Do you need 'decade' defined?


After you look up that definition....look up "Roaring Twenties."

The end result to the Roaring Twenties and the economic policies of that era of unregulated profiteering was the market crash of 1929 that caused the Great Depression.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Yep.

The intellectual descendants of those who worshipped Bismarck’s Prussia or Mussolini’s Ministry of Corporations, namely the New Dealers…latched on to the lodestar of 'enlightened economic policy'….in a quest for the holy grail of government-business ‘collaboration.’

It's corporatism, crony capitalism, and collectivism.

Turns out that 'spreading the wealth' is the recipe for failure.

It was not worshipping. It was intellectual experimentation and a search for pragmatic solutions. It is easy to look back and bloviate about how if some other policies or programs were used things would have turned out better. The trouble is that that is nothing more than self-aggrandizing speculative opinionating with no attempt to outline what policies and programs, efforts and plans would have done better or resolved the problems of the day.
FDR came into office with the worst economy in American history. So bad it saw stock brokers diving out of high rise Wall Street building and masses of citizens completely dependent on soup kitchens. While this was happening the Axis nations were building huge technologically advanced militaries that threatened the very survival of America.
In 12 years FDR managed to end the depression and beat America's enemies, in large part by his insightful support of developing advanced weapons that including advanced aircraft carriers and aircraft. From the atom bomb to the Garand infantry rifle, FDR guided the development of the weapons that shortened the war, reduced American casualties and brought victory against both Germany and Japan, resulting in America becoming the richest and most powerful nation in world history. But of course, there are those today that claim they could have done a better job, they just can explain how.

"FDR came into office with the worst economy in American history."

Really?

Or....did he make it the worst?


1. "America’s greatest depression fighter was Warren Gamaliel Harding. An Ohio senator when he was elected president in 1920, he followed Woodrow Wilson who got America into World War I, ...Harding inherited the mess, in particular the post-World War I depression – almost as severe, from peak to trough, as the Great Contraction from 1929 to 1933, that FDR inherited and prolonged.

2. Richard K. Vedder and Lowell E. Gallaway, in their book Out of Work (1993), noted that the magnitude of the 1920 depression "exceeded that for the Great Depression of the following decade for several quarters." The estimated gross national product plunged 24% from $91.5 billion in 1920 to $69.6 billion in 1921. The number of unemployed people jumped from 2.1 million in 1920 to 4.9 million in 1921.

3. Compared to FDR, Harding had a much better understanding of how an economy works. Harding, wrote historian Robert K. Murray, in The Harding Era (1969), "always decried high taxes, government waste, and excessive governmental interference in the private sector of the economy. In February 1920, shortly after announcing his candidacy, he advocated a cut in government expenditures and stated that government ought to ‘strike the shackles from industry.’ ‘We need vastly more freedom than we do regulation,’ he said. Surprisingly, big business took very little notice of him at the time."

4. With Harding’s tax cuts, spending cuts and relatively non-interventionist economic policy, the gross national product rebounded to $74.1 billion in 1922. The number of unemployed fell to 2.8 million – a reported 6.7% of the labor force – in 1922. So, just a year and a half after Harding became president, the Roaring 20s were underway! The unemployment rate continued to decline, reaching a low of 1.8% in 1926 – an extraordinary feat. Since then, the unemployment rate has been lower only once in wartime (1944), and never in peacetime."
America’s Greatest Depression*Fighter by Jim Powell

http://archive.lewrockwell.com/orig4/powell-jim4.html

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/226645/not-so-great-depression/jim-powell



So...I must ask again....and demand an answer:
Are you a fool or a liar????


Speak up!

Well you did remind me of H.L. Menken writing about Harding calling Harding the bloviator. Menken also included a line from a Harding speech, and it would be rude not to include it in any mention of Harding and Menken:

"I would like government to do all it can to mitigate, then, in understanding, in mutuality of interest, in concern for the common good, our tasks will be solved."
I wonder where historians rate Harding?

One can be a bloviator and still be far more successful in domestic policy than a fraud and dictator-wanna be who was elected four time.

The evidence is clear: even you have to admit that solving the recession/Depression in 1-2 years is far, far better than extending it a decade.


Do you need 'decade' defined?


After you look up that definition....look up "Roaring Twenties."

The end result to the Roaring Twenties and the economic policies of that era of unregulated profiteering was the market crash of 1929 that caused the Great Depression.

The recession was caused by Smoot-Hawley.
The Depression was caused by Roosevelt, who knew exactly how to end it....he learned that from Harding.....but simply continued to do what Hoover did, to make certain that the downturn continued.

"When it was all over, I once made a list of New Deal ventures begun during Hoover’s years as Secretary of Commerce and then as president. . . . The New Deal owed much to what he had begun."—FDR advisor Rexford G. Tugwell

"When we all burst into Washington . . . we found every essential idea [of the New Deal] enacted in the 100-day Congress in the Hoover administration itself. The essentials of the NRA [National Recovery Administration], the PWA [Public Works Administration], the emergency relief setup were all there. Even the AAA [Agricultural Adjustment Act] was known to the Department of Agriculture. Only the TVA [Tennessee Valley Authority] and the Securities Act was [sic] drawn from other sources. The RFC [Reconstruction Finance Corporation], probably the greatest recovery agency, was of course a Hoover measure, passed long before the inauguration." FDR advisor Rexford G. Tugwell

"Decades later, Tugwell, writing to Moley, said of Hoover: “[W]e were too hard on a man who really invented most of the devices we used.”16 Members of Roosevelt’s inner circle would have every reason to disassociate themselves from the policies of their predecessor; yet these two men recognized Hoover’s role as the father of the New Deal quite clearly."
Hoover's Economic Policies: The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics | Library of Economics and Liberty




Now.....why would FDR have wanted the crisis to continue???


Hint: Rahm Emanuel

 

[Socratesrevenge]

The very first fireside chat by Roosevelt, stated, 'this is what the bankers are doing to fix it'.

Welcome to the board, Soc....

I would appreciate it if you could articulate your position, view, understanding of the era.

FDR was just another politician who worked for the babylonian banksters at the expense of the people, albeit he was a bankster himself. FDR was the worst potus, even worse than Woodrow Wilson.

 

[PoliticalChic]

The very first fireside chat by Roosevelt, stated, 'this is what the bankers are doing to fix it'.

Welcome to the board, Soc....

I would appreciate it if you could articulate your position, view, understanding of the era.

FDR was just another politician who worked for the babylonian banksters at the expense of the people, albeit he was a bankster himself. FDR was the worst potus, even worse than Woodrow Wilson.

Well...I'll go part way with you.

But his heart...if he had one...was with the totalitarian dictators Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin....
...certainly not with the bankers or businessmen.


He was certainly a detriment to the America of the Founders.

 

[regent]

Just can't seem to do much with FDR's number one ranking in history eh? The framers based our Constitution on the liberalism of their age, and FDR followed suit with more liberalism in his age of the Great Depression. A future president will probably add 50cc of more liberalism when conditions demand. It is the nature of progress.

 

[Camp]

The recession was caused by Smoot-Hawley.
The Depression was caused by Roosevelt, who knew exactly how to end it....he learned that from Harding.....but simply continued to do what Hoover did, to make certain that the downturn continued.

The distortion and misinformation now being promoted by the OP are that the Great Depression did not begin with the market crash of 1929. The new revisionism is now that the crash only caused a "recession". Look at any history of the Great Depression and you will see the 1929 market crash and the high unemployment rate that followed as the beginning of the Depression. Up to a fourth of the population were unemployed by the time FDR came into office in 1933. Harding had predicted the economy would improve within a few months in January of 1931. A month later food riots began as the population saw no improvement.

Harding didn't have just a downturn. He had an economic crash and failed to fix it in four years. He had neither the courage or political skills to make his experimental programs have significant impacts on the economy. It took Roosevelt to take the reigns of control to begin lowering the unemployment rolls, which he began immediately.

This link shows a timeline for the Great Depression. More documentary than academic, but it can be skimmed though to confirm dates.
pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/timeline/rails-timeline

A short documentary and article that confirms dates.
history.com/topics/great-depression

Amazing that a revisionist and conspiracy theorist would go so far as to change the dates and causes of such a well known and studied historical event, but without doing so the revisionist hasn't much to build the hateful misinformation and rhetoric on.

 

[PoliticalChic]

The recession was caused by Smoot-Hawley.
The Depression was caused by Roosevelt, who knew exactly how to end it....he learned that from Harding.....but simply continued to do what Hoover did, to make certain that the downturn continued.

The distortion and misinformation now being promoted by the OP are that the Great Depression did not begin with the market crash of 1929. The new revisionism is now that the crash only caused a "recession". Look at any history of the Great Depression and you will see the 1929 market crash and the high unemployment rate that followed as the beginning of the Depression. Up to a fourth of the population were unemployed by the time FDR came into office in 1933. Harding had predicted the economy would improve within a few months in January of 1931. A month later food riots began as the population saw no improvement.

Harding didn't have just a downturn. He had an economic crash and failed to fix it in four years. He had neither the courage or political skills to make his experimental programs have significant impacts on the economy. It took Roosevelt to take the reigns of control to begin lowering the unemployment rolls, which he began immediately.

This link shows a timeline for the Great Depression. More documentary than academic, but it can be skimmed though to confirm dates.
pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/timeline/rails-timeline

A short documentary and article that confirms dates.
history.com/topics/great-depression

Amazing that a revisionist and conspiracy theorist would go so far as to change the dates and causes of such a well known and studied historical event, but without doing so the revisionist hasn't much to build the hateful misinformation and rhetoric on.

"Harding didn't have just a downturn. He had an economic crash and failed to fix it in four years."


As a novel approach....how about you stick to the truth?


".... just a year and a half after Harding became president, the Roaring 20s were underway! The unemployment rate continued to decline, reaching a low of 1.8% in 1926 – an extraordinary feat. Since then, the unemployment rate has been lower only once in wartime (1944), and never in peacetime.
Harding had the depression of 1920 licked in a year and a half, but under the "progressive" FDR, the Great Depression would persisted throughout the 1930s, until FDR began conscripting millions of young men for the armed forces."
America’s Greatest Depression*Fighter by Jim Powell
http://archive.lewrockwell.com/orig4/powell-jim4.html
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/226645/not-so-great-depression/jim-powell

 

[Camp]

The recession was caused by Smoot-Hawley.
The Depression was caused by Roosevelt, who knew exactly how to end it....he learned that from Harding.....but simply continued to do what Hoover did, to make certain that the downturn continued.

The distortion and misinformation now being promoted by the OP are that the Great Depression did not begin with the market crash of 1929. The new revisionism is now that the crash only caused a "recession". Look at any history of the Great Depression and you will see the 1929 market crash and the high unemployment rate that followed as the beginning of the Depression. Up to a fourth of the population were unemployed by the time FDR came into office in 1933. Harding had predicted the economy would improve within a few months in January of 1931. A month later food riots began as the population saw no improvement.

Harding didn't have just a downturn. He had an economic crash and failed to fix it in four years. He had neither the courage or political skills to make his experimental programs have significant impacts on the economy. It took Roosevelt to take the reigns of control to begin lowering the unemployment rolls, which he began immediately.

This link shows a timeline for the Great Depression. More documentary than academic, but it can be skimmed though to confirm dates.
pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/timeline/rails-timeline

A short documentary and article that confirms dates.
history.com/topics/great-depression

Amazing that a revisionist and conspiracy theorist would go so far as to change the dates and causes of such a well known and studied historical event, but without doing so the revisionist hasn't much to build the hateful misinformation and rhetoric on.

"Harding didn't have just a downturn. He had an economic crash and failed to fix it in four years."


As a novel approach....how about you stick to the truth?


".... just a year and a half after Harding became president, the Roaring 20s were underway! The unemployment rate continued to decline, reaching a low of 1.8% in 1926 – an extraordinary feat. Since then, the unemployment rate has been lower only once in wartime (1944), and never in peacetime.
Harding had the depression of 1920 licked in a year and a half, but under the "progressive" FDR, the Great Depression would persisted throughout the 1930s, until FDR began conscripting millions of young men for the armed forces."
America’s Greatest Depression*Fighter by Jim Powell
http://archive.lewrockwell.com/orig4/powell-jim4.html
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/226645/not-so-great-depression/jim-powell

Correct, I named Harding instead of Hoover, but that doesn't change the revisionist rhetoric of implying Roosevelt inherited the depression and not a recession. Obviously, over a decade and two Presidents separated Harding and FDR.