it's hard to tell whether right wingnuts are just uneducated or just plain stupid? Or are they the puppets of business? Latter makes a strong case.
Read the history at link below.
1922
The conservative Supreme Court strikes down federal child labor legislation.
1923
President Warren Harding dies in office; his administration was easily one of the most corrupt in American history. Calvin Coolidge, who is squeaky clean by comparison, becomes president. Coolidge is no less committed to laissez-faire and a non-interventionist government. He announces to the American people: "The business of America is business."
Supreme Court nullifies minimum wage for women in District of Columbia.
1924
The Ku Klux Klan reaches the height of its influence in America: by the end of the year it will claim 9 million members. It will decline drastically in 1925, however, after financial and moral scandals rock its leadership.
The stock market begins its spectacular rise. Bears little relation to the rest of the economy.
1925
The top tax rate is lowered to 25 percent - the lowest top rate in the eight decades since World War I.
Supreme Court rules that trade organizations do not violate anti-trust laws as long as some competition survives.
1928
The construction boom is over.
Farmers' share of the national income has dropped from 15 to 9 percent since 1920.
Between May 1928 and September 1929, the average prices of stocks will rise 40 percent. Trading will mushroom from 2-3 million shares per day to over 5 million. The boom is largely artificial.
1929
Herbert Hoover becomes President. Hoover is a staunch individualist but not as committed to laissez-faire ideology as Coolidge.
More than half of all Americans are living below a minimum subsistence level.
Annual per-capita income is $750; for farm people, it is only $273.
Backlog of business inventories grows three times larger than the year before. Public consumption markedly down.
Freight carloads and manufacturing fall.
Automobile sales decline by a third in the nine months before the crash.
Construction down $2 billion since 1926.
Recession begins in August, two months before the stock market crash. During this two month period, production will decline at an annual rate of 20 percent, wholesale prices at 7.5 percent, and personal income at 5 percent.
Stock market crash begins October 24. Investors call October 29 "Black Tuesday." Losses for the month will total $16 billion, an astronomical sum in those days.
Congress passes Agricultural Marketing Act to support farmers until they can get back on their feet."
Read rest here:
Timeline of the Great Depression
Where Keynes Went Wrong - Page 2
"Historian Phillips-Fein traces the hidden history of the Reagan revolution to a coterie of business executives, including General Electric official and Reagan mentor Lemuel Boulware, who saw labor unions, government regulation, high taxes and welfare spending as dire threats to their profits and power. From the 1930s onward, the author argues, they provided the money, organization and fervor for a decades-long war against New Deal liberalism—funding campaigns, think tanks, magazines and lobbying groups, and indoctrinating employees in the virtues of unfettered capitalism." [ame=http://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Hands-Making-Conservative-Movement/dp/0393059308/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247845984&sr=1-1]Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan: Kim Phillips-Fein: 9780393059304: Amazon.com: Books[/ame]
Summary
Timeline of the Great Depression
The Great Depression, to 1935
The Main Causes of the Great Depression
Stiff upper lip.
