The Source of FDR's Greatness

[CrusaderFrank]

Grand Coulee Dam: History and purpose

Just another way FDR found to waste money just to give people jobs. Anyone know if we still use than dam?

"Cost benefits

The Bureau of Reclamation in 1932 estimated the cost of constructing Grand Coulee Dam (not including the Third Powerplant) to be $168 million; its actual cost was $163 million ($1.85 billion in 1998). Expenses to finish the power stations and repair design flaws with the dam throughout the 1940s and '50s added another $107 million, bringing the total cost to $270 million ($2.6 billion in 1998), about 33% over estimates.[80] The Third Powerplant was estimated to cost $390 million in 1967, but higher construction costs and labor disputes drove the project's final cost in 1973 to $730 million ($2.93 billion in 1998), about 55% over estimates. Despite estimates being exceeded, the dam became an economic success, particularly with the Third Powerplant exhibiting a benefit-cost ratio of 2:1.[63] Although Reclamation has only irrigated about half of the land predicted, the gross value of crop output (in constant dollars) had doubled from 1962 to 1992, largely due to different farming practices and crop choices.[35"
Grand Coulee Dam - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And even make-work jobs that got people eating again were well worth the money.

FDR should have pointed that out to his Uncle Joe

 

[PaintMyHouse]

Grand Coulee Dam: History and purpose

Just another way FDR found to waste money just to give people jobs. Anyone know if we still use than dam?

Yep, that's one of the projects that benefited the local area for a few years while hurting the entire nation for a decade.

Nonsense, total nonsense.

"Operation and benefits

The dam's primary goal, irrigation, was postponed as the wartime need for electricity increased. The dam's powerhouse began production around the time World War II began, and its electricity was vital to the war effort. The dam powered aluminum smelters in Longview and Vancouver, Washington, Boeing factories in Seattle and Vancouver, and Portland's shipyards. In 1943, its electricity was also used for plutonium production in Richland, Washington, at the Hanford Site, which was part of the top-secret Manhattan Project.[73][74] The demand for power at that project was so great that in 1943, two generators originally intended for the Shasta Dam were installed at Grand Coulee in an effort to hurry the generator installation schedule.[75]

Irrigation

Water is pumped via the Pump-Generating Plant's 12-foot (3.7 m) diameter pipes 280 ft (85 m) from Lake Roosevelt to a 1.6 mi (2.6 km) feeder canal. From the feeder canal, the water is transferred to Banks Lake which has an active storage of 715,000 acre·ft (882,000,000 m3). The plant's twelve 65,000–70,000 horsepower pumps can transfer up to 1,605 cu ft/s (45 m3/s) to the lake. Currently, the Columbia Basin Project irrigates 670,000 acres (2,700 km2) with a potential for 1.1 million.[68] Over 60 different crops are grown within the project and distributed throughout the United States.[58]"
Grand Coulee Dam - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[PaintMyHouse]

Grand Coulee Dam: History and purpose

Just another way FDR found to waste money just to give people jobs. Anyone know if we still use than dam?

"Cost benefits

The Bureau of Reclamation in 1932 estimated the cost of constructing Grand Coulee Dam (not including the Third Powerplant) to be $168 million; its actual cost was $163 million ($1.85 billion in 1998). Expenses to finish the power stations and repair design flaws with the dam throughout the 1940s and '50s added another $107 million, bringing the total cost to $270 million ($2.6 billion in 1998), about 33% over estimates.[80] The Third Powerplant was estimated to cost $390 million in 1967, but higher construction costs and labor disputes drove the project's final cost in 1973 to $730 million ($2.93 billion in 1998), about 55% over estimates. Despite estimates being exceeded, the dam became an economic success, particularly with the Third Powerplant exhibiting a benefit-cost ratio of 2:1.[63] Although Reclamation has only irrigated about half of the land predicted, the gross value of crop output (in constant dollars) had doubled from 1962 to 1992, largely due to different farming practices and crop choices.[35"
Grand Coulee Dam - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And even make-work jobs that got people eating again were well worth the money.

FDR should have pointed that out to his Uncle Joe

I would imagine that he did at some point. It's not like the Depression was only here. When people don't have money and the cash stops flowing, all hell breaks loose.

 

[Peach]

Forget the TVA & WPA, unless you care to see the Blue Ridge Mountains or the Florida Keys

...have you ever seen the Blue Ridge Mountains boy, or the Chattahoochee, or the Honeysuckle Bluuuuueeeeee........ Drivin' N Cryin'.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

"Cost benefits

The Bureau of Reclamation in 1932 estimated the cost of constructing Grand Coulee Dam (not including the Third Powerplant) to be $168 million; its actual cost was $163 million ($1.85 billion in 1998). Expenses to finish the power stations and repair design flaws with the dam throughout the 1940s and '50s added another $107 million, bringing the total cost to $270 million ($2.6 billion in 1998), about 33% over estimates.[80] The Third Powerplant was estimated to cost $390 million in 1967, but higher construction costs and labor disputes drove the project's final cost in 1973 to $730 million ($2.93 billion in 1998), about 55% over estimates. Despite estimates being exceeded, the dam became an economic success, particularly with the Third Powerplant exhibiting a benefit-cost ratio of 2:1.[63] Although Reclamation has only irrigated about half of the land predicted, the gross value of crop output (in constant dollars) had doubled from 1962 to 1992, largely due to different farming practices and crop choices.[35"
Grand Coulee Dam - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And even make-work jobs that got people eating again were well worth the money.

FDR should have pointed that out to his Uncle Joe

I would imagine that he did at some point. It's not like the Depression was only here. When people don't have money and the cash stops flowing, all hell breaks loose.

Sorry? You think Stalin's relocation and mass starvation of the Kulaks was a weather event or economic event?

Is that what you're saying?

 

[Camp]

And he stretched what should have been a normal recession, into the Great Depression by raising taxes, usurping stat authority, and injecting massive uncertainty into the economy during an economic downturn.

Roosevelt implemented massive government programs to "help" the problems of the Depression, but only succeeded in injecting so much uncertainty into the economy that he drew out the Depression to make it "Great", holding the country in an agony of economic paralysis for much longer than any depression of other economic downturn in history. It is not known how many people died, or lived shortened, more miserable lives, as a result of Roosevelt's misguided meddling in an economy he didn't understand.

You have opinions and opinions are just opinions.

TRANSLATION: I can't refute anything you said. So instead of agreeing, I'll ignore it and pretend it's not so.

No, that is not the translation. You are posting opinions about how FDR's economic policies effected the nation. Your statement that his policies injected uncertainty into the economy and hence exacerbated the depression is an opinion. Your entire post is a list of opinions that has been debated by people, inluding scholars and academic's for generations.

I am posting factual information with video additions to show how FDR did things that continue to benefit the public and even the economy.

People are still making a living and have good jobs thanks to the Blue Ridge Parkway. It's entire length is stringed with small towns whose main industry is tourism to visitors of the Parkway. FDR's purpose for the Blue Ridge Parkway was to create the temporary jobs constructing it, but also to have a long lasting economic effect on the population of the appalachain mountains which had a historically horrible record of poverty.

 

[PaintMyHouse]

FDR should have pointed that out to his Uncle Joe

I would imagine that he did at some point. It's not like the Depression was only here. When people don't have money and the cash stops flowing, all hell breaks loose.

Sorry? You think Stalin's relocation and mass starvation of the Kulaks was a weather event or economic event?

Is that what you're saying?

I didn't say anything of the kind. Have you not heard of a Pogrom? Stalin had a gift for them.

 

[Camp]

Grand Coulee Dam: History and purpose

Just another way FDR found to waste money just to give people jobs. Anyone know if we still use than dam?

Yep, that's one of the projects that benefited the local area for a few years while hurting the entire nation for a decade.

It still benefits the nation. That project has paid dividends since the day it was started. It's paid off it's original investment and continues to pay certain high dividends every year.

 

[Bush92]

During the Great Depression he instituted temporary relief programs that required work to receive benefits. Unlike today's free ride for welfare queens. Biggest contribution was restoration of American confidence that the nation could beat the depression.

 

[Little-Acorn]

Grand Coulee Dam: History and purpose

Just another way FDR found to waste money just to give people jobs. Anyone know if we still use than dam?

Yep, that's one of the projects that benefited the local area for a few years while hurting the entire nation for a decade.

It still benefits the nation. That project has paid dividends since the day it was started. It's paid off it's original investment and continues to pay certain high dividends every year.

And it still caused far more pain and economic disruption when it was being built, than any benefit.

It was one of the projects that stretched out the Depression and turned it into the Great Depression.

 

[PaintMyHouse]

Yep, that's one of the projects that benefited the local area for a few years while hurting the entire nation for a decade.

It still benefits the nation. That project has paid dividends since the day it was started. It's paid off it's original investment and continues to pay certain high dividends every year.

And it still caused far more pain and economic disruption when it was being built, than any benefit.

It was one of the projects that stretched out the Depression and turned it into the Great Depression.

Where do you guys get this crap from? And even if that was true, you have absolutely no way to prove it. History is what it is. This wasn't done in a lab where we could test the results again and again. It's reality, which I know, you guys can't deal with.

 

[Camp]

Yep, that's one of the projects that benefited the local area for a few years while hurting the entire nation for a decade.

It still benefits the nation. That project has paid dividends since the day it was started. It's paid off it's original investment and continues to pay certain high dividends every year.

And it still caused far more pain and economic disruption when it was being built, than any benefit.

It was one of the projects that stretched out the Depression and turned it into the Great Depression.

Explain please. How did building a dam that employed thousands during a depression hurt the economy and drag out the depression? Seriously, your comment sounds beyond ridiculous. But even if we except your claim, how do you juxtapose a few years of negative economic effect as you claim, to over 70 years of the positive effect of providing electricity and irrigation which in turn has provided tens of millions of jobs for generations in that region?