The World FDR Inherited Thread

[Syriusly]

World War 2 saw the largest increase in government employment, and the largest increase in government spending(by percentage) we ever had.

So when the claim is that WW2 ended our Depression- that seems to me to be a demonstration that massive government spending can end a Depression.

Meanwhile of course the usual wingnuts think that anyone who doesn't think FDR was a communist is a communist also.

 

[Political Junky]

FDR took a downturn in the economy and turned it into a soup line, bodies in ditches full scale depression in eight years. It took the carnage of a World War to turn the economy around.

That's why camps of homeless and starving people were called Hoovervilles.
Hoover brought on the Depression, and FDR ended it.

Hooverville - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

 

[whitehall]

FDR took a downturn in the economy and turned it into a soup line, bodies in ditches full scale depression in eight years. It took the carnage of a World War to turn the economy around.

And Hoovervilles were a figment of our imagination as was the Bonus Army?

Speaking of the bonus army is a story I like contrasting the Hoover and FDR administrations. Hoover sent MacArthur and a contingent of infantry and maybe some tanks to clear the bonus out their Hoovervilles. One or two veterans died and maybe a baby.
When the bonus army met again after the election, FDR sent Eleanor down to talk to the veterans, she had lunch with them, they sang a few WWI songs and Eleanor left.

FDR and his distant cousin/wife Eleanor and Dougout Doug MacArthur always had total support from the lazy drunks that passed for the media in those days. In fact democrats still enjoy the total support regardless of issues from the drunks and druggies that pass for the mainstream media today. How could an administration get away with killing Veterans with tanks and incarcerating American citizens in concentration camps at the stroke of an executive order? FDR owned the media. How could Bubba Bill Clinton get away with credible accusations or rape and degenerate behavior in the Oval Office not to mention using tanks and poison gas against American citizens? You guessed it, the media.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

FDR took a downturn in the economy and turned it into a soup line, bodies in ditches full scale depression in eight years. It took the carnage of a World War to turn the economy around.

And Hoovervilles were a figment of our imagination as was the Bonus Army?

Speaking of the bonus army is a story I like contrasting the Hoover and FDR administrations. Hoover sent MacArthur and a contingent of infantry and maybe some tanks to clear the bonus out their Hoovervilles. One or two veterans died and maybe a baby.
When the bonus army met again after the election, FDR sent Eleanor down to talk to the veterans, she had lunch with them, they sang a few WWI songs and Eleanor left.

FDR and his distant cousin/wife Eleanor and Dougout Doug MacArthur always had total support from the lazy drunks that passed for the media in those days.

In fact democrats still enjoy the total support regardless of issues from the drunks and druggies that pass for the mainstream media today.

How could an administration get away with killing Veterans with tanks and incarcerating American citizens in concentration camps at the stroke of an executive order?

FDR owned the media.

How could Bubba Bill Clinton get away with credible accusations or rape and degenerate behavior in the Oval Office not to mention using tanks and poison gas against American citizens? You guessed it, the media.

Wow!

Despite the widespread popularity of these initiatives, Roosevelt faced opposition from several quarters, including most of the nation’s newspaper publishers, many business and financial interests, entrenched states’-rights supporters, and advocates of small government. Since the Gilded Age of the 1890s, those forces had controlled America’s economic establishment and, after a brief eclipse during the progressivism of the Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson administrations, they had assumed renewed primacy during the 1920s. Bolstering their position was a legal regime overseen by the US Supreme Court. In a line of cases following the end of Reconstruction, the Court had built a doctrinal superstructure conducive to modern laissez-faire industrialism and hostile to the claims of laborers and the indigent. Legal concepts like substantive due process had exalted private property and freedom of contract while limiting the power of government to regulate or otherwise interfere with entrepreneurship.​

FDR s Court-Packing Plan A Study in Irony The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

and how Clinton fits in is just batshit crazy

 

[bendog]

JFK was a social liberal and international anti-communist. JFK couldn't get the bill through, and LBJ did, but the basic notion of cutting to top rate to 70% is hardly that of what today's gop favors. So, attempts to paint him as a "conservative" are laughable, and I don't think the conservatives want to claim LBJ as one of their own. And, to get the bill passed, LBJ had to promise to keep spending under a level. He lied, but he promised. Reagan promised more spending too. So, "supply side" and "Laugher curve" became ideological terms themselves to hide what was going to be a deficit explosion. "Deficits don't matter, Reagan taught us that."

But, I'm not going to pretend to know what the financial situation was in the 1960s beyond growth stagnated under Ike, and there was real concern that the Russian economy was growing much faster than ours, but as it turned out the CIA was grossly incompetent in analyzing the Russian economy and the % of their gnp they spent on defense.

But, was there an excess in capital that required more demand to consume production? Or, as in the 1970s, had demand been crushed by a decade of inflation followed by Fed induced recession? Once inflation was killed, the Fed reduced rates, and increased demand came from improved consumer conditions, and increased capital resulted in more consumer choices. And Reagan's tax plan was enacted the same day IBM marketed the first PC. It's good to be lucky.

If there's a comparison, I'd say it was Thatcher/Reagan had a basic belief that growth would be better with private actors allocating capital to risk.

Yes, JFK promoted his tax cut as a way to spur growth. But this eerily sounds that Reagan:

In meeting the demands of war finance, the individual income tax moved from a selective tax imposed on the wealthy to the means by which the great majority of our citizens participates in paying for well over one-half of our total budget receipts. It is supplemented by the corporation income tax, which provides for another quarter of the total.
This emphasis on income taxation has been a sound development. But so many taxpayers have become so preoccupied with so many tax-saving devices that business decisions are interfered with, and the efficient functioning of the price system is distorted.
Moreover, special provisions have developed into an increasing source of preferential treatment to various groups. Whenever one taxpayer is permitted to pay less, someone else must be asked to pay more. The uniform distribution of the tax burden is thereby disturbed and higher rates are made necessary by the narrowing of the tax base. Of course, some departures from uniformity are needed to promote desirable social or economic objectives of overriding importance which can be achieved most effectively through the tax mechanism. But many of the preferences which have developed do not meet such a test and need to be reevaluated in our tax reform program.
It will be a major aim of our tax reform program to reverse this process, by broadening the tax base and reconsidering the rate structure. The result should be a tax system that is more equitable, more efficient and more conducive to economic growth.

President Kennedy Appeals to the Congress for a Tax Cut - 1961

Yet, there's also this which sounds like Obama:

Changing economic conditions at home and abroad, the desire to achieve greater equity in taxation, and the strains which have developed in our balance of payments position in the last few years, compel us to examine critically certain features of our tax system which, in conjunction with the tax system of other countries, consistently favor United States private investment abroad compared with investment in our own economy. 1. Elimination of tax deferral privileges in developed countries and "tax haven" deferral privileges in all countries. Profits earned abroad by American firms operating through foreign subsidiaries are, under present tax laws, subject to United States tax only when they are returned to the parent company in the form of dividends. In some cases, this tax deferral has made possible indefinite postponement of the United States tax; and, in those countries where income taxes are lower than in the United States, the ability to defer the payment of U.S. tax by retaining income in the subsidiary [p.295] companies provides a tax advantage for companies operating through overseas subsidiaries that is not available to companies operating solely in the United States.

So, I'm hard put to answer your question beyond what Glasner said in the conclusion of link I posted earlier, "econ policy has consequences, both good and bad."

Obviously in 1961, JFK had no notion of monetarism because Greenspan was just publishing his magnum opus. He could not have known that the real cause of the great depression was the central bank reducing the monetary supply while deflation occurred, and the genius of FDR was to kill the gold standard and increase money. (Of course that may have been more a byproduct of Keynes than actual policy. It's good to be lucky. Too bad JFK wasn't as lucky as Reagan in getting shot) Did JFK even consider supply? I suspect he had a Keynesian notion that supply would always rise and fall to fill demand. EDIT: BUT AS 1980 SHOWED, SUPPLY WILL NOT ALWAYS RISE TO FILL INCREASED DEMAND UNLESS EITHER WE HAVE MORE MONEY SUPPLY (POSSIBLE INFLATION) OR THE GOVT HAS LESS REVENUE WITH A TAX CUT. So, there I agree with you that JFK's tax cut was not a supply side cut. BUT, THERE'S A HERESEY TO THE REAGANMYTHOLOGISTS. JUST AS THERE'S NO INVISIBLE HAND DIRECTING SOME INEVITABLE DEMAND IN MARKETS, REAGAN HIMSELF PURSUED ECON POLICY TO ALTER SUPPLY/DEMAND TO ACHIEVE A DIFFERENT BALANCE THAN THAT OF 1978.

But I don't think it really matters. When ideologues say "supply side," they mean cut taxes on the rich cause they pay too much. It has nothing to do with economics. And, given how the top 1%'s incomes are rising faster than their share of income taxes are rising, I'm not crying for them. My concern is more about how can incomes of workers be increased without some kind of "just tax the rich to even out income inequality."

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

JFK was a social liberal and international anti-communist. JFK couldn't get the bill through, and LBJ did, but the basic notion of cutting to top rate to 70% is hardly that of what today's gop favors. So, attempts to paint him as a "conservative" are laughable, and I don't think the conservatives want to claim LBJ as one of their own. And, to get the bill passed, LBJ had to promise to keep spending under a level. He lied, but he promised. Reagan promised more spending too. So, "supply side" and "Laugher curve" became ideological terms themselves to hide what was going to be a deficit explosion. "Deficits don't matter, Reagan taught us that."

But, I'm not going to pretend to know what the financial situation was in the 1960s beyond growth stagnated under Ike, and there was real concern that the Russian economy was growing much faster than ours, but as it turned out the CIA was grossly incompetent in analyzing the Russian economy and the % of their gnp they spent on defense.

But, was there an excess in capital that required more demand to consume production? Or, as in the 1970s, had demand been crushed by a decade of inflation followed by Fed induced recession? Once inflation was killed, the Fed reduced rates, and increased demand came from improved consumer conditions, and increased capital resulted in more consumer choices. And Reagan's tax plan was enacted the same day IBM marketed the first PC. It's good to be lucky.

If there's a comparison, I'd say it was Thatcher/Reagan had a basic belief that growth would be better with private actors allocating capital to risk.

Yes, JFK promoted his tax cut as a way to spur growth. But this eerily sounds that Reagan:

In meeting the demands of war finance, the individual income tax moved from a selective tax imposed on the wealthy to the means by which the great majority of our citizens participates in paying for well over one-half of our total budget receipts. It is supplemented by the corporation income tax, which provides for another quarter of the total.
This emphasis on income taxation has been a sound development. But so many taxpayers have become so preoccupied with so many tax-saving devices that business decisions are interfered with, and the efficient functioning of the price system is distorted.
Moreover, special provisions have developed into an increasing source of preferential treatment to various groups. Whenever one taxpayer is permitted to pay less, someone else must be asked to pay more. The uniform distribution of the tax burden is thereby disturbed and higher rates are made necessary by the narrowing of the tax base. Of course, some departures from uniformity are needed to promote desirable social or economic objectives of overriding importance which can be achieved most effectively through the tax mechanism. But many of the preferences which have developed do not meet such a test and need to be reevaluated in our tax reform program.
It will be a major aim of our tax reform program to reverse this process, by broadening the tax base and reconsidering the rate structure. The result should be a tax system that is more equitable, more efficient and more conducive to economic growth.

President Kennedy Appeals to the Congress for a Tax Cut - 1961

Yet, there's also this which sounds like Obama:

Changing economic conditions at home and abroad, the desire to achieve greater equity in taxation, and the strains which have developed in our balance of payments position in the last few years, compel us to examine critically certain features of our tax system which, in conjunction with the tax system of other countries, consistently favor United States private investment abroad compared with investment in our own economy. 1. Elimination of tax deferral privileges in developed countries and "tax haven" deferral privileges in all countries. Profits earned abroad by American firms operating through foreign subsidiaries are, under present tax laws, subject to United States tax only when they are returned to the parent company in the form of dividends. In some cases, this tax deferral has made possible indefinite postponement of the United States tax; and, in those countries where income taxes are lower than in the United States, the ability to defer the payment of U.S. tax by retaining income in the subsidiary [p.295] companies provides a tax advantage for companies operating through overseas subsidiaries that is not available to companies operating solely in the United States.

So, I'm hard put to answer your question beyond what Glasner said in the conclusion of link I posted earlier, "econ policy has consequences, both good and bad."

Obviously in 1961, JFK had no notion of monetarism because Greenspan was just publishing his magnum opus. He could not have known that the real cause of the great depression was the central bank reducing the monetary supply while deflation occurred, and the genius of FDR was to kill the gold standard and increase money. (Of course that may have been more a byproduct of Keynes than actual policy. It's good to be lucky. Too bad he wasn't as lucky as Reagan in getting shot) Did JFK even consider supply? I suspect he had a Keynesian notion that supply would always rise and fall to fill demand. So, there I agree with you that JFK's tax cut was not a supply side cut.

But I don't think it really matters. When ideologues say "supply side," they mean cut taxes on the rich cause they pay too much. It has nothing to do with economics. And, given how the top 1%'s incomes are rising faster than their share of income taxes are rising, I'm not crying for them. My concern is more about how can incomes of workers be increased without some kind of "just tax the rich to even out income inequality."

bendog

I've read Kennedy's address and understand Thatcher/Reagan a little, but I don't find it eerily similar as much as similar in ways that all economic arguments sound similar to me. I guess the devil is always in the details, and now the computer models

 

[bendog]

I think that's it exactly. Once past the ideology, most economic arguments are pretty similar. We really haven't had a real one since Ted and Jimmah disagreed on whether to continue ineffective wage price controls or to cause a recession to combat inflation. The monetarists won.

I think maybe JFK's econ views were more moderate that the very liberal. FDR literally did enjoy rubbing his class's nose in it. Americans were starving and his class was outraged that FDR would do something like putting them on the dole and demanding they pay for it. That response ushered in 30 years of distain for the very rich. Truman had no use for them. Ike was fine with wartime taxes. JFK was a rich playboy. A guy who gave his health for his country, but he sure didn't hate nice stuff. It may not have been so much supply side as just trying to figure out how to grow the economy.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

I think that's it exactly. Once past the ideology, most economic arguments are pretty similar. We really haven't had a real one since Ted and Jimmah disagreed on whether to continue ineffective wage price controls or to cause a recession to combat inflation. The monetarists won.

I think maybe JFK's econ views were more moderate that the very liberal. FDR literally did enjoy rubbing his class's nose in it. Americans were starving and his class was outraged that FDR would do something like putting them on the dole and demanding they pay for it. That response ushered in 30 years of distain for the very rich. Truman had no use for them. Ike was fine with wartime taxes. JFK was a rich playboy. A guy who gave his health for his country, but he sure didn't hate nice stuff. It may not have been so much supply side as just trying to figure out how to grow the economy.

If the monetarists won, why did Reagan replace Burns -- no Miller, no Volker! -- Volker with Greenspan?

Yeah, Carter the liberal!

I was with Ted

 

[Syriusly]

FDR took a downturn in the economy and turned it into a soup line, bodies in ditches full scale depression in eight years. It took the carnage of a World War to turn the economy around.

And Hoovervilles were a figment of our imagination as was the Bonus Army?

Speaking of the bonus army is a story I like contrasting the Hoover and FDR administrations. Hoover sent MacArthur and a contingent of infantry and maybe some tanks to clear the bonus out their Hoovervilles. One or two veterans died and maybe a baby.
When the bonus army met again after the election, FDR sent Eleanor down to talk to the veterans, she had lunch with them, they sang a few WWI songs and Eleanor left.

FDR and his distant cousin/wife Eleanor and Dougout Doug MacArthur always had total support from the lazy drunks that passed for the media in those days. In fact democrats still enjoy the total support regardless of issues from the drunks and druggies that pass for the mainstream media today. How could an administration get away with killing Veterans with tanks and incarcerating American citizens in concentration camps at the stroke of an executive order? FDR owned the media. How could Bubba Bill Clinton get away with credible accusations or rape and degenerate behavior in the Oval Office not to mention using tanks and poison gas against American citizens? You guessed it, the media.

FDR's incarceration of American citizen's of Japanese descent is a blemish on American history- and on his record. Unfortunately it was very popular at the time- which is how he could get away with it.

The use of tanks and the Army to disrupt Veterans was done on the orders of Herbert Hoover- who ordered Macarthur to use the army to clear out the vets- another disgraceful action- but that was Hoover's disgraceful action- MacArthur carried out his orders.

Interesting isn't it that you blame FDR for one bad action- and but don't blame Hoover for the other disgraceful executive action?

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

FDR took a downturn in the economy and turned it into a soup line, bodies in ditches full scale depression in eight years. It took the carnage of a World War to turn the economy around.

And Hoovervilles were a figment of our imagination as was the Bonus Army?

Speaking of the bonus army is a story I like contrasting the Hoover and FDR administrations. Hoover sent MacArthur and a contingent of infantry and maybe some tanks to clear the bonus out their Hoovervilles. One or two veterans died and maybe a baby.
When the bonus army met again after the election, FDR sent Eleanor down to talk to the veterans, she had lunch with them, they sang a few WWI songs and Eleanor left.

FDR and his distant cousin/wife Eleanor and Dougout Doug MacArthur always had total support from the lazy drunks that passed for the media in those days. In fact democrats still enjoy the total support regardless of issues from the drunks and druggies that pass for the mainstream media today. How could an administration get away with killing Veterans with tanks and incarcerating American citizens in concentration camps at the stroke of an executive order? FDR owned the media. How could Bubba Bill Clinton get away with credible accusations or rape and degenerate behavior in the Oval Office not to mention using tanks and poison gas against American citizens? You guessed it, the media.

FDR's incarceration of American citizen's of Japanese descent is a blemish on American history- and on his record. Unfortunately it was very popular at the time- which is how he could get away with it.

The use of tanks and the Army to disrupt Veterans was done on the orders of Herbert Hoover- who ordered Macarthur to use the army to clear out the vets- another disgraceful action- but that was Hoover's disgraceful action- MacArthur carried out his orders.

Interesting isn't it that you blame FDR for one bad action- and but don't blame Hoover for the other disgraceful executive action?

How the violence from the regular Army came about is an interesting story. Hoover did not authorize what took place. And yes, whitehall is an idiot for inferring FDR as President had something to do with it

 

[regent]

FDR took a downturn in the economy and turned it into a soup line, bodies in ditches full scale depression in eight years. It took the carnage of a World War to turn the economy around.

And Hoovervilles were a figment of our imagination as was the Bonus Army?

Speaking of the bonus army is a story I like contrasting the Hoover and FDR administrations. Hoover sent MacArthur and a contingent of infantry and maybe some tanks to clear the bonus out their Hoovervilles. One or two veterans died and maybe a baby.
When the bonus army met again after the election, FDR sent Eleanor down to talk to the veterans, she had lunch with them, they sang a few WWI songs and Eleanor left.

FDR and his distant cousin/wife Eleanor and Dougout Doug MacArthur always had total support from the lazy drunks that passed for the media in those days. In fact democrats still enjoy the total support regardless of issues from the drunks and druggies that pass for the mainstream media today. How could an administration get away with killing Veterans with tanks and incarcerating American citizens in concentration camps at the stroke of an executive order? FDR owned the media. How could Bubba Bill Clinton get away with credible accusations or rape and degenerate behavior in the Oval Office not to mention using tanks and poison gas against American citizens? You guessed it, the media.

So the historians are communists, and are you now saying the media are communists?

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

FDR took a downturn in the economy and turned it into a soup line, bodies in ditches full scale depression in eight years. It took the carnage of a World War to turn the economy around.

And Hoovervilles were a figment of our imagination as was the Bonus Army?

Speaking of the bonus army is a story I like contrasting the Hoover and FDR administrations. Hoover sent MacArthur and a contingent of infantry and maybe some tanks to clear the bonus out their Hoovervilles. One or two veterans died and maybe a baby.
When the bonus army met again after the election, FDR sent Eleanor down to talk to the veterans, she had lunch with them, they sang a few WWI songs and Eleanor left.

FDR and his distant cousin/wife Eleanor and Dougout Doug MacArthur always had total support from the lazy drunks that passed for the media in those days. In fact democrats still enjoy the total support regardless of issues from the drunks and druggies that pass for the mainstream media today. How could an administration get away with killing Veterans with tanks and incarcerating American citizens in concentration camps at the stroke of an executive order? FDR owned the media. How could Bubba Bill Clinton get away with credible accusations or rape and degenerate behavior in the Oval Office not to mention using tanks and poison gas against American citizens? You guessed it, the media.

So the historians are communists, and are you now saying the media are communists?

He's channeling CrusaderFrank -- please don't stop him. He's doing a swell job!!

 

[Camp]

FDR took a downturn in the economy and turned it into a soup line, bodies in ditches full scale depression in eight years. It took the carnage of a World War to turn the economy around.

And Hoovervilles were a figment of our imagination as was the Bonus Army?

Speaking of the bonus army is a story I like contrasting the Hoover and FDR administrations. Hoover sent MacArthur and a contingent of infantry and maybe some tanks to clear the bonus out their Hoovervilles. One or two veterans died and maybe a baby.
When the bonus army met again after the election, FDR sent Eleanor down to talk to the veterans, she had lunch with them, they sang a few WWI songs and Eleanor left.

FDR and his distant cousin/wife Eleanor and Dougout Doug MacArthur always had total support from the lazy drunks that passed for the media in those days. In fact democrats still enjoy the total support regardless of issues from the drunks and druggies that pass for the mainstream media today. How could an administration get away with killing Veterans with tanks and incarcerating American citizens in concentration camps at the stroke of an executive order? FDR owned the media. How could Bubba Bill Clinton get away with credible accusations or rape and degenerate behavior in the Oval Office not to mention using tanks and poison gas against American citizens? You guessed it, the media.

So the historians are communists, and are you now saying the media are communists?

All the people who voted for him were communist too. And the people who visit one of his major Memorial's in Washington DC and New York are communist. In fact, all the people who ride over the major bridges and highways he built are commie's. Even the people still getting electric from the dams he built are communist.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

Camp hilarious!

 

[Vigilante]

Joe Biden sings the praises of FDR!

 

[Political Junky]

FDR took a downturn in the economy and turned it into a soup line, bodies in ditches full scale depression in eight years. It took the carnage of a World War to turn the economy around.

 

[Political Junky]

FDR Averaged 20% unemployment from his inauguration in 1933 until Hitler conquered France in 1940

2 terms of Fail

That happens in a depression.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

FDR Averaged 20% unemployment from his inauguration in 1933 until Hitler conquered France in 1940

2 terms of Fail

That happens in a depression.

Only when FDR was President and only for the FDR Depression

 

[Political Junky]

FDR Averaged 20% unemployment from his inauguration in 1933 until Hitler conquered France in 1940

2 terms of Fail

That happens in a depression.

Only when FDR was President and only for the FDR Depression