The Five Errors: Five Mistakes From The Great Depression, Made Again

[bitterlyclingin]

(He proclaimed he was going to take the boom and the bust out of the American economy. He's eminently succeeded, making the economy permanently dead.)

"Now that we are at Labor Day — meaning the start of the year of presidential campaigning — let us review the five big errors that made the Great Depression. These were spelled out three years ago in a column by our Amity Shlaes. It was issued in the Washington Post under the headline “Five Ways to Wreck a Recovery.” Her lessons are drawn from her seminal history of the catastrophe of the 1930s, “The Forgotten Man.” Her list remains, in our view, one of the most prescient op-ed pieces to herald President Obama’s accession.

The tragedy of Mr. Obama’s presidency is that he has committed nearly every one of the errors that extended the Great Depression. The first was, as Miss Shlaes put it, “giving in to protectionism,” a blunder confected on the even of the Great Depression by three Republicans, Willis Hawley, a congressman from Oregon, Reed Smoot, a senator of Utah, and President Hoover. They ignored the warnings of more than a thousand economists who issued an open letter warning that duties would “raise the cost of living and injure the great majority of our citizens.”"


The Five Errors - September 3, 2011 - The New York Sun

 

[Brutus]

(He proclaimed he was going to take the boom and the bust out of the American economy. He's eminently succeeded, making the economy permanently dead.)

"Now that we are at Labor Day — meaning the start of the year of presidential campaigning — let us review the five big errors that made the Great Depression. These were spelled out three years ago in a column by our Amity Shlaes. It was issued in the Washington Post under the headline “Five Ways to Wreck a Recovery.” Her lessons are drawn from her seminal history of the catastrophe of the 1930s, “The Forgotten Man.” Her list remains, in our view, one of the most prescient op-ed pieces to herald President Obama’s accession.

The tragedy of Mr. Obama’s presidency is that he has committed nearly every one of the errors that extended the Great Depression. The first was, as Miss Shlaes put it, “giving in to protectionism,” a blunder confected on the even of the Great Depression by three Republicans, Willis Hawley, a congressman from Oregon, Reed Smoot, a senator of Utah, and President Hoover. They ignored the warnings of more than a thousand economists who issued an open letter warning that duties would “raise the cost of living and injure the great majority of our citizens.”"


The Five Errors - September 3, 2011 - The New York Sun

She is mostly wrong in that the Depression was largely caused by bank runs and deflation. Thankfully enough agree with that this time so TARP and other measures were used to keep the banking system alive.