The Harding Plan: Cut spending and Get Out of the Way.

[regent]

This is why I laugh when people tell me how "great" FDR was

Both historians, and the people that lived through the Great Depression, indicate that FDR was great. The people voted for FDR four times in a row, and the historians have never rated FDR less than one of the three greatest presidents, and recently, as America's greatest.

And when he died, the people immediately passed an amendment to the Constitution to prevent anyone from being elected President 4 times. Why did they do that if he was so great?

The people didn't pass that amendment conservative's passed it. Perhaps Republicans wanted FDR to have the glory of being the only president elected for more than two terms.
The Republicans realized that no Republican president could be elected three times so....
Republicans were getting worried that another Democrat would come along and run for five terms.
In reality it was probably a spite amendment, and with Ike some Repubicans realized what they had done.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

The Fed caused the crash and started the FDR Depression. Please try to get one fact in per post

The lack of regulation governing how stocks could be purchased was the major factor in the crash. Most stocks were being bought on margin, up to 90% margin, meaning investors, including the banks, only put up 10% to purchase stock. When the market crashed, not only was the value of the stock lost, all the margin buyers still owed the 90% they had borrowed. None of that money was there to begin with, so it could never be paid back. This led to the liquidation of one bank after another, and since regular American's deposits weren't covered by any type of insurance like the FDIC, even people who had money all of a sudden had none, because it went with the banks.

This is true, buying on margin was likely the greatest cause behind the 1929 crash that lead to the Great Depression. Don't know if Harding saw it coming cuz he wasn't that smart, but Herbert Hoover was. While Secy of Treasury under Coolidge he tried to convince Congress to pass some restraints on margin buying, but to no avail.

By the time 1929 came around Harding was kind of dead.

Also, Coolidge decided not to run in 1928 because he felt he served 2 terms when he stepped in for Harding (who I mentioned previously as being dead) Instead the guy Coolidge derisively called "Wonder Boy" ran and won. Coolidge thought Hoover was a complete fucking moron and history has proved both correct.

 

[there4eyeM]

The Harding Administrtation was probably the most corrupt in out history, Sinclair ended up with the naval oil reserves at Teapot Dome, as the Harding administration even sold VA materials. Even for Republicans the corruption was overdone. Harding is still is rated as America's worst president with Bush only taking fifth place in the worst-president race.

Only fifth? They must have meant he regularly drank one, or should have.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Harding and the Tea Pot Dome is another major motherfucking Liberal lie on par with Joe McCarthy using his HUAC to blacklist Hollywood people and start a "Red Scare"

 

[regent]

Harding and the Tea Pot Dome is another major motherfucking Liberal lie on par with Joe McCarthy using his HUAC to blacklist Hollywood people and start a "Red Scare"

Amazing the number of liberal lies that have gone into the history books. I think the charges against McCarthy is using the red scare to further his own cause, and the ensuing damage. But McCarthy was exposed in the Army-McCarthy duel.
It was the scandals that incurred during his administration that earned Harding the worst president rating.

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

3 History tells a different story. For the first 150 years of this country's existence, the federal government felt no great need to "do something" when the economy turned down.

Yeah. And as consequence, it sucked hard when the economy faltered. For one thing, with no FDIC, bank runs were common. How would you like to wake up one day to find out your checking account has disappeared?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Harding and the Tea Pot Dome is another major motherfucking Liberal lie on par with Joe McCarthy using his HUAC to blacklist Hollywood people and start a "Red Scare"

Amazing the number of liberal lies that have gone into the history books. I think the charges against McCarthy is using the red scare to further his own cause, and the ensuing damage. But McCarthy was exposed in the Army-McCarthy duel.
It was the scandals that incurred during his administration that earned Harding the worst president rating.

Tell me how Harding was involved in Tea Pot Dome Scandal again

 

[CrusaderFrank]

3 History tells a different story. For the first 150 years of this country's existence, the federal government felt no great need to "do something" when the economy turned down.

Yeah. And as consequence, it sucked hard when the economy faltered. For one thing, with no FDIC, bank runs were common. How would you like to wake up one day to find out your checking account has disappeared?

And yet it took a Central bank and a central planner to have a Depression worse than the 7 Biblical Lean years, the worst in American history, the FDR Depression

 

[there4eyeM]

Isn't the fundamental point that the depression itself, like the recent one, was caused by pure greed and willing suspension of disbelief on the part of over eager porkers at the Wall Street trough?

 

[JakeStarkey]

Because the do-nothing free market policies of Andrew Mellon, which guided GOP adminsitrations in the 1920s, helped to blow up the economy, particularly in banking.

Frank, the government in a world of modern communications and technology has a major role along with business and labor in running things.

To think that libertarian principles can work is the heighth of lunacy.

3 History tells a different story. For the first 150 years of this country's existence, the federal government felt no great need to "do something" when the economy turned down.

Yeah. And as consequence, it sucked hard when the economy faltered. For one thing, with no FDIC, bank runs were common. How would you like to wake up one day to find out your checking account has disappeared?

And yet it took a Central bank and a central planner to have a Depression worse than the 7 Biblical Lean years, the worst in American history, the FDR Depression

 

[PaulS1950]

Spending money that doesn't exist is what "blew up the economy".
Spending money that doesn't exist will result in failure of the USA as we know it.
The national debt is currently over 13,000,000,000,000 (thirteen TRILLION) dollars and will go up another 3,000,000,000,000 (three TRILLION) dollars to $19,000,000,000,000 in October.
This debt is never being paid off or even down. The USA pays only the interest on it.
In the next four years it will rise another 24,000,000,000,000 (twenty-four TRILLION) dollars to over 37,000,000,000,000 (thirty-seven TRILLION) dollars. In eight years we will no longer be able to pay the interest and have tax money left to run the country. When you borrow money to pay the interest on a loan you are bankrupt.
When that happens the government will fall and those who are dependent on it will lose. The wealthy and the smart will have already diverged their money into more stable funds and be fine. It is the rest of us that will suffer from what our "representatives" have done to us.
Neither party is exempt from blame, both have contributed to this and neither is doing anything about it. The American voters have been voting the same since Abraham Lincoln expecting a change and they are still doing it. (doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome is the definition of insanity)
The voting public that votes for the same two parties year after year are by definition insane.

 

[Polk]

This is why I laugh when people tell me how "great" FDR was

Both historians, and the people that lived through the Great Depression, indicate that FDR was great. The people voted for FDR four times in a row, and the historians have never rated FDR less than one of the three greatest presidents, and recently, as America's greatest.

FDR was a great failure, he oversaw an economy worse than the 7 Biblical leans years. His Soviet style central planning and hatred of business stifled economic activity in the USA.

Farm and industrial output skyrocketed. Unemployment was cut in half. That's lean?

 

[Polk]

Thomas Sowell

An Economic 'Plan'?


1. Former president Bill Clinton told the Democratic National Convention that Barack Obama has a plan to rescue the economy, and only the fact that the Republicans stood in his way has stopped him from getting the economy out of the doldrums.

2. From all this, and much else that is said in the media and on the campaign trail, you might think that the economy requires government intervention to revive and create jobs. It is Beltway dogma that the government has to "do something."

3 History tells a different story. For the first 150 years of this country's existence, the federal government felt no great need to "do something" when the economy turned down.

Over that long span of time, the economic downturns were neither as deep nor as long lasting as they have been since the federal government decided that it had to "do something" in the wake of the stock market crash of 1929, which set a new precedent.

4. One of the last of the "do nothing" presidents was Warren G. Harding. In 1921, under President Harding, unemployment hit 11.7 percent -- higher than it has been under President Obama. Harding did nothing to get the economy stimulated. [/B

5. ]Far from spending more money to try to "jump start" the economy, President Harding actually reduced government spending, as the tax revenues declined during the economic downturn.

6. The 11.7 percent unemployment rate in 1921 fell to 6.7 percent in 1922, and then to 2.4 percent in 1923. It is hard to think of any government intervention in the economy that produced such a sharp and swift reduction in unemployment as was produced by just staying out of the way and letting the economy rebound on its own.

7. Something similar happened under Ronald Reagan. Unemployment peaked at 9.7 percent early in the Reagan administration. Like Harding and earlier presidents, Reagan did nothing, despite outraged outcries in the media.

8 The economy once again revived on its own. Three years later, unemployment was down to 7.2 percent -- and it kept on falling, as the country experienced twenty years of economic growth with low inflation and low unemployment.

An Economic 'Plan'? - Thomas Sowell - Page 1

The Harding Plan: Cut spending and Get Out of the Way.

BTW, Harding did cut taxes significantly under the Revenue Act of 1921. His administration was considerably pro business in many ways, lower taxes, less spending, and reduced regulations seemed to work then; one wonders why we aren't trying the same formula this time, or at least not going in the opposite direction.

Because slashing spending during a recession causes the economy to shrink.

 

[PaulS1950]

Farm and industrial output skyrocketed. Unemployment was cut in half. That's lean?

Farm and industrial output skyrocketed but no one had any money to buy anything.
Soup kitchens and bread lines sprung up on street corners to feed the starving. I worked for an old man who "bought" a new Ford for a sack of potatoes.
Yes, there were some very lean years for a lot of the population.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Both historians, and the people that lived through the Great Depression, indicate that FDR was great. The people voted for FDR four times in a row, and the historians have never rated FDR less than one of the three greatest presidents, and recently, as America's greatest.

FDR was a great failure, he oversaw an economy worse than the 7 Biblical leans years. His Soviet style central planning and hatred of business stifled economic activity in the USA.

Farm and industrial output skyrocketed. Unemployment was cut in half. That's lean?

The Fed restored the money they siphoned out of the economy, that caused the GDP growth.

Unemployment averaged almost 20% from FDR inauguration in 1933 until Hitler conquered France in 1940. Is that the record you're talking about?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Thomas Sowell

An Economic 'Plan'?


1. Former president Bill Clinton told the Democratic National Convention that Barack Obama has a plan to rescue the economy, and only the fact that the Republicans stood in his way has stopped him from getting the economy out of the doldrums.

2. From all this, and much else that is said in the media and on the campaign trail, you might think that the economy requires government intervention to revive and create jobs. It is Beltway dogma that the government has to "do something."

3 History tells a different story. For the first 150 years of this country's existence, the federal government felt no great need to "do something" when the economy turned down.

Over that long span of time, the economic downturns were neither as deep nor as long lasting as they have been since the federal government decided that it had to "do something" in the wake of the stock market crash of 1929, which set a new precedent.

4. One of the last of the "do nothing" presidents was Warren G. Harding. In 1921, under President Harding, unemployment hit 11.7 percent -- higher than it has been under President Obama. Harding did nothing to get the economy stimulated. [/B

5. ]Far from spending more money to try to "jump start" the economy, President Harding actually reduced government spending, as the tax revenues declined during the economic downturn.

6. The 11.7 percent unemployment rate in 1921 fell to 6.7 percent in 1922, and then to 2.4 percent in 1923. It is hard to think of any government intervention in the economy that produced such a sharp and swift reduction in unemployment as was produced by just staying out of the way and letting the economy rebound on its own.

7. Something similar happened under Ronald Reagan. Unemployment peaked at 9.7 percent early in the Reagan administration. Like Harding and earlier presidents, Reagan did nothing, despite outraged outcries in the media.

8 The economy once again revived on its own. Three years later, unemployment was down to 7.2 percent -- and it kept on falling, as the country experienced twenty years of economic growth with low inflation and low unemployment.

An Economic 'Plan'? - Thomas Sowell - Page 1

The Harding Plan: Cut spending and Get Out of the Way.

BTW, Harding did cut taxes significantly under the Revenue Act of 1921. His administration was considerably pro business in many ways, lower taxes, less spending, and reduced regulations seemed to work then; one wonders why we aren't trying the same formula this time, or at least not going in the opposite direction.

Because slashing spending during a recession causes the economy to shrink.

1921 called, they said you can't be any wronger

 

[Polk]

Harding was one of our most corrupt and inept presidents in history

You're confusing Harding with Obama.

Members of the Harding administration were openly taking bribes.
Obama has some policies you dislike.

He's not confused. It seems you don't know what corrupt means.

 

[Polk]

BTW, Harding did cut taxes significantly under the Revenue Act of 1921. His administration was considerably pro business in many ways, lower taxes, less spending, and reduced regulations seemed to work then; one wonders why we aren't trying the same formula this time, or at least not going in the opposite direction.

Because slashing spending during a recession causes the economy to shrink.

1921 called, they said you can't be any wronger

The 1921 recession was caused in the first place by shrinking government spending as war spending declined.

 

[Polk]

Farm and industrial output skyrocketed. Unemployment was cut in half. That's lean?

Farm and industrial output skyrocketed but no one had any money to buy anything.
Soup kitchens and bread lines sprung up on street corners to feed the starving. I worked for an old man who "bought" a new Ford for a sack of potatoes.
Yes, there were some very lean years for a lot of the population.

Do you think the output was produced by magic elves? There was still a lot of work to do be, but FDR's policies had the nation on clear path to improvement. Then he listened to your side and cut spending, result in the 1937 recession.

 

[Polk]

Also, Sowell's unemployment figures are based off of old estimates that didn't hold up under later study. More modern research shows the peak unemployment of the recession was lower (~9% instead of ~12%) and the rate did not decline as much afterwards (~5% in 1923 instead of ~2%). Even though there were strong deflationary pressures, the modern research aligns more closely with the output data.