OT: Did FDR help or hurt?

[Ed Huntress]

Sorry for the new thread, but I missed this using Agent, and I have no
idea how to go back and get it:

[Huntress said]

> The median time for recovery that I'm hearing from economists is that
> it probably will take 10 - 12 years to recover from the housing and
> financial meltdown.


> That's probably why Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, and Mitch Daniels didn't
> run. They're the smartest and most able candidates the Republicans
> have, but they also know that whoever is president for the succeeding
> four years won't be able to do much about it, either.


> As John McCain's top economic advisor said a few weeks after Obama's
> inauguration, McCain would have had no choice but to do exactly what
> Obama did. That was the only option available that had a chance of
> preventing a depression. And it did.

[Hawke said]

So you have been hearing from economists? Good. Because I've been
trying
to tell Dan and Johnny that the view of the two UCLA economists who
say
FDR made the Depression longer and deeper is not what most economists
believe. Would you know if the consensus of economists agrees with the
Cole and Ohanian report or do most economists disagree with their
conclusions? I'm pretty sure most economists think FDR did a pretty
darn
good job in his handling the Depression. I believe that Krugman an
Bernanke think so. Do you know what the majority of economists think
about this question? I thought the views of Cole and Ohanian are
crackpot.

Hawke

=================================================

[reply]

I haven't looked for any kind of a poll. The mainstream view is that
leaving things alone would have deepened the Depression. FDR's mistake
was to cut back spending in 1936 or 1937, which double-dipped the
whole thing. His solutions weren't ideological at all. He was just
trying anything that might work.

Cole and Ohanian have made a neoclassical argument, based on
econometric methods and assumptions of rational-choice theory and
Austrican School principles of behavior. I read parts of it but not
the whole thing.

Given the public attitudes and extreme risk-aversion going on once the
Depression got started, modern economists would find it unlikely that
a neoclassical approach would have worked. People were acting like
human beings, not likw optimizing "economic actors" in the
neoclassical mold. In fact, that's what Hoover was doing in the
beginning. It's somewhat like the plan that the Europeans have just
agreed to. The question is whether austerity is going to hit
consumption so hard that it will prolong the recession. Mainstream
economists seem to believe it will, but I've only read a few comments
over the past two days.

We'll see.

--
Ed Huntress

[dca...@krl.org]

On Dec 10, 2:26 pm, Ed Huntress <huntre...@optonline.net> wrote:


> Cole and Ohanian have made a neoclassical argument, based on
> econometric methods and assumptions of rational-choice theory and
> Austrican School principles of behavior. I read parts of it but not
> the whole thing.
>

> Ed Huntress

You might read the whole argument of Cole and Ohanian.

Here is a little bit.

"President Roosevelt believed that excessive competition was
responsible for the Depression by reducing prices and wages, and by
extension reducing employment and demand for goods and services," said
Cole, also a UCLA professor of economics. "So he came up with a
recovery package that would be unimaginable today, allowing businesses
in every industry to collude without the threat of antitrust
prosecution and workers to demand salaries about 25 percent above
where they ought to have been, given market forces. The economy was
poised for a beautiful recovery, but that recovery was stalled by
these misguided policies."

The policies were contained in the National Industrial Recovery Act
(NIRA), which exempted industries from antitrust prosecution if they
agreed to enter into collective bargaining agreements that
significantly raised wages. Because protection from antitrust
prosecution all but ensured higher prices for goods and services, a
wide range of industries took the bait, Cole and Ohanian found. By
1934 more than 500 industries, which accounted for nearly 80 percent
of private, non-agricultural employment, had entered into the
collective bargaining agreements called for under NIRA.

So the major part of their argument is that FDR pushed for higher
wages and prices and the higher wages and prices were responsible for
prolonging the depression. Their argument is not about government
spending, but about exempting industries from antitrust if they
unionized and raised wages.

Dan

[Hawke]

I thought I'd ask you about this one because my memory is not what it
used to be. I thought it was pretty much established that FDR saved the
country and that his New Deal played a big part in it. Silly me, where
did I ever hear such a thing? Anyway, it seemed to me that this idea
that FDR was responsible for deepening and prolonging the Depression was
plain horseshit and was nothing but right wing historical revisionism.
Seems that my memory was right and this paper by Cole and Ohanian is
nothing but crap masquerading as science. I just ran into an article
saying they're full of it just like I thought.

Here's a quote from the article;

> Sure, the vast majority of Americans think the New Deal worked well.
> But are conservatives right? Did the New Deal’s “massive government
> intervention prolong the Great Depression”?
>
> Ummm ... no.
>
> Upon deeper examination, I discovered that the right bases its New
> Deal revisionism on the short-lived recession in a year straddling
> 1937 and 1938. But that was four years into Roosevelt’s term—four
> years marked by spectacular economic growth. Additionally, the
> fleeting decline happened not because of the New Deal’s spending
> programs, but because Roosevelt momentarily listened to conservatives
> and backed off them. As Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman notes,
> in 1937-38, FDR “was persuaded to balance the budget” and “cut
> spending and the economy went back down again.”
>
> To be sure, you can credibly argue that the New Deal had its share of
> problems. But overall, the numbers prove it helped—rather than
> hurt—the macro-economy. “Excepting 1937-1938, unemployment fell each
> year of Roosevelt’s first two terms [while] the U.S. economy grew at
> average annual growth rates of 9 percent to 10 percent,” writes
> University of California historian Eric Rauchway.
>
> What about the New Deal’s most “massive government intervention”—its
> financial regulations? Did they prolong the Great Depression in ways
> the official data didn’t detect?
>
> Nope.
>
> According to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, “Only with the
> New Deal’s rehabilitation of the financial system in 1933-35 did the
> economy begin its slow emergence from the Great Depression.” In fact,
> even famed conservative economist Milton Friedman admitted that the
> New Deal’s Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was “the structural change
> most conducive to monetary stability since ... the Civil War.”
>
> OK—if the verifiable evidence proves the New Deal did not prolong the
> Depression, what about historians—do they “pretty much agree” on the
> opposite?
>
> Again, no.
>
> As Newsweek’s Daniel Gross reports, “One would be very hard-pressed
> to find a serious professional historian who believes that the New
> Deal prolonged the Depression.”

Like I said to Dan and Johnny, this paper put out by the UCLA economists
got notice because it's claims don't not comport with what has been the
established view for many years. It's revisionist history. Which only
goes to show you that rust never sleeps and the right wing never stops
hating FDR and never stops trying to reinvent history to suit themselves.

Hawke


Oh yeah, here's the link to the article.

> http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090101_fdr_prolonged_the_depression_really/

[dca...@krl.org]

On Dec 11, 12:34 am, Hawke <davesmith...@digitalpath.net> wrote:






>
> I thought I'd ask you about this one because my memory is not what it
> used to be. I thought it was pretty much established that FDR saved the
> country and that his New Deal played a big part in it. Silly me, where
> did I ever hear such a thing? Anyway, it seemed to me that this idea
> that FDR was responsible for deepening and prolonging the Depression was
> plain horseshit and was nothing but right wing historical revisionism.
> Seems that my memory was right and this paper by Cole and Ohanian is
> nothing but crap masquerading as science. I just ran into an article
> saying they're full of it just like I thought.
>

> > OK—if the verifiable evidence proves the New Deal did not prolong the
> > Depression, what about historians—do they “pretty much agree” on the
> > opposite?
>
> > Again, no.
>
> > As Newsweek’s Daniel Gross reports, “One would be very hard-pressed
> > to find a serious professional historian who believes that the New
> > Deal prolonged the Depression.”
>
> Like I said to Dan and Johnny, this paper put out by the UCLA economists
> got notice because it's claims don't not comport with what has been the
> established view for many years. It's revisionist history. Which only
> goes to show you that rust never sleeps and the right wing never stops
> hating FDR and never stops trying to reinvent history to suit themselves.
>
> Hawke
>

I notice that you completely ignore Cole and Ohanian's reasoning that
FDR's pushing for high wages was the cause of the depression being
prolonged. You keep doing back to the New Deal, but not to the push
FDR made for unions.

Apparently you did not read Cole"s and Ohanian's argument.

Dan

[Gunner Asch]

And the Parakeet claims that a non Leftwing/socialist study of FDR and
his crew is revisionist history.

Doesnt say much for the writings/excuses of the prior Leftwing/Socialist
commentators now does it?

Gunner

One could not be a successful Leftwinger without realizing that,
in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers
and mothers of Leftwingers, a goodly number of Leftwingers are
not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid.
Gunner Asch

[Tom Del Rosso]

Gunner Asch wrote:
> On Sun, 11 Dec 2011 05:29:39 -0800 (PST), "dca...@krl.org"
> <dca...@krl.org> wrote:
> > I notice that you completely ignore Cole and Ohanian's reasoning
> > that FDR's pushing for high wages was the cause of the depression
> > being prolonged. You keep doing back to the New Deal, but not to
> > the push FDR made for unions.
>

> And the Parakeet claims that a non Leftwing/socialist study of FDR and
> his crew is revisionist history.

It wasn't just wages, but all sorts of policies that changed from day to
day. That made it impossible for bussinesses to plan ahead, just as it is
today. When the war came, and they got contracts that would last a few
years, then bussinesses had a more stable environment to plan ahead and "do
business."

Ironic that the war was more stable, in economic terms, than the New Deal
was. War is supposed to cause instability.

*********

As a side note, Gunner, was the guy's finger re-attached?

*********


--

Reply in group, but if emailing add one more
zero, and remove the last word.

[clarkm...@gmail.com]

Henry Morgenthau, Jr., FDR's Treasury Secretary 1934 -1945:

"We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work.


The book to read on what a mess that FDR made when he turned a rescission into a depression is

http://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Man-History-Great-Depression/dp/0066211700

[Tom Del Rosso]

> > On Dec 11, 12:34 am, Hawke <davesmith...@digitalpath.net> wrote:
> > >
> > > > As Newsweek's Daniel Gross reports, "One would be very
> > > > hard-pressed to find a serious professional historian who
> > > > believes that the New Deal prolonged the Depression."

Interesting that people on the left think of asking historians or economists
about, essentially, "what motivates businessmen to do this or that?"

It's interesting because it never seems to occur to them to ask businessmen
what their motives were. I wonder how many "serious professional"
businessmen of the 1930's believed that the Depression would have lasted
longer without the New Deal.

How much longer? Does anyone, not only a serious professional historian,
but anyone with a cerebellum, think it would have lasted into or beyond the
war?

[Ed Huntress]

On Sun, 11 Dec 2011 15:25:57 -0500, "Tom Del Rosso"
<td...@verizon.net.invalid> wrote:

>
>> > On Dec 11, 12:34 am, Hawke <davesmith...@digitalpath.net> wrote:
>> > >
>> > > > As Newsweek's Daniel Gross reports, "One would be very
>> > > > hard-pressed to find a serious professional historian who
>> > > > believes that the New Deal prolonged the Depression."
>
>Interesting that people on the left think of asking historians or economists
>about, essentially, "what motivates businessmen to do this or that?"
>
>It's interesting because it never seems to occur to them to ask businessmen
>what their motives were.

That's a mistake on your part, Tom. They do it all the time. So do
survey companies.

> I wonder how many "serious professional"
>businessmen of the 1930's believed that the Depression would have lasted
>longer without the New Deal.

A bigger question is how many of them would know. What they knew was
what businessmen are reporting over the last couple of years: their
number one issue in most surveys is a lack of customers.

What they knew about the larger economic questions is problematic.

>
>How much longer? Does anyone, not only a serious professional historian,
>but anyone with a cerebellum, think it would have lasted into or beyond the
>war?

It didn't. Look at the numbers. I was recovering until 1936, when
there was a blip that followed a decrease in government spending. Some
of that was restored, and the recovery continued.

If you have trouble finding the historical data, just ask.

--
Ed Huntress

[Hawke]

Do you not really know that "business" is not rocket science and that
what businessmen think and what they want is pretty much what it has
been for thousands of years? Think about it. How much different is the
business of an Italian that owned an olive orchard a thousand years ago
compared to a modern day avocado grower? I can tell you. It's hardly any
different at all. Business has been the same for thousands of years and
businessmen are not all that different now from what they have always been.

So for right wingers to think that no one knows about or understands
what it it like to be a businessman is just plain stupid. We know what
business is like and we know what businessmen are like. We know what
they want. It's simple. They want it so they can make lots of money
without anyone or anything interfering with that. Oh, and they don't
want to pay any taxes either.

So next time you hear that clap-trap about Democrats not understanding
business don't believe it for a minute. It's propaganda. Businessmen act
and think the same now as they always have. Just for an example, I saw a
speech on Youtube given in 1920 by the president of the Chamber of
Commerce. You could have taken the same language from any republican
today. In the speech the head of the Chamber of Commerce was warning
that if the government put the Securities and Exchange Commission in
place to regulate Wall Street it would be the end of capitalism. Sound
familiar? It's all the same. Businessmen are still the same. Just about
everyone knows what they think and want. If you don't then it's you who
is out of step.

Hawke

[Hawke]

No, that's definitely not the book to read if you want to learn about
the Depression. The book you refer to is written by a nice conservative
woman named Amity Shales, if I remember correctly. It's just like the
Cole and Ohanian report. It's a revision of history by the right wing
where instead of reality they paint a picture of what they wish had
happened. In their self created reality the republicans had the right
formula to fix things, the republicans and business didn't cause the
Depression the government did it, and if everyone had just left business
alone everything would have been just fine on it's own.

Now, I know some people will believe that because they want to. But I
also know that is as true as what Holocaust deniers tell you about the
Holocaust. So I'll warn once again. Don't believe it when you hear right
wing "scholars" blame the Depression on someone other than business and
Wall Street. They have been trying to avoid the blame for every economic
crash in the last 100 years. They tell us FDR made things worse and now
Obama has ruined the economy. Don't believe in those kinds of fairy
tales. They're not true.

Hawke

[dca...@krl.org]

On Dec 11, 6:00 pm, Hawke <davesmith...@digitalpath.net> wrote:


>. Don't believe it when you hear right
> wing "scholars" blame the Depression on someone other than business and
> Wall Street. They have been trying to avoid the blame for every economic
> crash in the last 100 years. They tell us FDR made things worse and now
> Obama has ruined the economy. Don't believe in those kinds of fairy
> tales. They're not true.
>
> Hawke

May all be true, but you would be more convincing if you threw in a
fact or two.

Dan

[Tom Del Rosso]

Hawke wrote:
>
> Do you not really know that "business" is not rocket science

Predicting what FDR's or Obama's policy is going to be next week may as well
be rocket science.

And if you don't know that business requires planning, and that requires
predictable policies then you really don't know anything about business.

And nothing you said even addresses that point, so you might have missed it.
Maybe because you think "planning" is something government does best.

> So next time you hear that clap-trap about Democrats not understanding
> business don't believe it for a minute. It's propaganda.

Yeah, I remember when Stalin's genocides were capitalist propaganda too. It
wasn't that long ago, but when they started to let dissidents emmigrate and
they confirmed the stories, then the left wingers all knew they were true
all along. I know of very few right wingers who denied the Holocaust for 50
years. It was almost universal among the mainstream liberals on the PBS
talking head shows a few decades ago.

I'm getting off topic, but that's what I think of when I hear about
"capitalist propaganda." It comes from people whom I consider to be no
better than Holocaust deniers.

> In the speech the head of the Chamber of Commerce was warning
> that if the government put the Securities and Exchange Commission in
> place to regulate Wall Street it would be the end of capitalism.

The end of capitalism has been a gradual process, and what the man said is
true, although he may have made it sound like it would happen all at once.
It actually started a few years before that, with the Fed. If they had
maintained a stable currency it wouldn't have become necessary to regulate
every single variable.

[Gunner Asch]

Nope. It was too badly torn up to stick it back on. They could have put
it on..but it would have simply resulted in it becoming a single finger
joint where there was originally 2. If he has severed it rather than
twisting it off..he would have been far better off.

[Hawke]

All you need is to know the economic history of the U.S., which I do. I
suppose I make a mistake believing that others do too. Maybe the people
saying FDR made things worse and Obama is ruining the economy should
give us a few facts as well. But then when you are pushing propaganda
you only use facts sparingly and only to fool your listeners. Unlike me,
who is only trying to educate those who don't know the truth.

Hawke.

[dca...@krl.org]

On Dec 13, 7:59 pm, Hawke <davesmith...@digitalpath.net> wrote:

> All you need is to know the economic history of the U.S., which I do. I
> suppose I make a mistake believing that others do too. Maybe the people
> saying FDR made things worse and Obama is ruining the economy should
> give us a few facts as well. But then when you are pushing propaganda
> you only use facts sparingly and only to fool your listeners. Unlike me,
> who is only trying to educate those who don't know the truth.
>
> Hawke.

So was the National Industry Recovery Act a FDR policy? Did FDR
exempt industries from antitrust prosecution if they entered into
collective bargaining agreements?

Did the NIRA result in higher prices for goods?

Dan

[Denis G.]

On Dec 11, 11:57 am, "clarkmagnu...@gmail.com"

> http://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Man-History-Great-Depression/dp/00662...

Here another:
http://www.amazon.com/Roosevelt-Myth-John-T-Flynn/dp/0930073274/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323836275&sr=1-1

[Larry Jaques]

On Tue, 13 Dec 2011 20:22:08 -0800 (PST), "Denis G."
<guille...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Dec 11, 11:57 am, "clarkmagnu...@gmail.com"
><clarkmagnu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Henry Morgenthau, Jr., FDR's Treasury Secretary 1934 -1945:
>>
>> "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work.
>>
>> The book to read on what a mess that FDR made when he turned a rescission into a depression is

"recission"? Somebody rescind Clark. Time for a twit filter, Denis.

>> http://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Man-History-Great-Depression/dp/00662...
>
>Here another:
>http://www.amazon.com/Roosevelt-Myth-John-T-Flynn/dp/0930073274/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323836275&sr=1-1

So, is this the truth, unfiltered by the times, or is it revisionist
history? Who here was alive (and paying attention) back then that can
remember it?

--
However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.
-- Sir Winston Churchill

[Gunner Asch]

http://mises.org/freemarket_detail.aspx?control=258

Volume 13, Number 2

How FDR Made the Depression Worse
Robert Higgs

Franklin Roosevelt "did bring us out of the Depression," Newt Gingrich
told a group of Republicans after the recent election, and that makes
FDR "the greatest figure of the 20th century." As political rhetoric,
the statement is likely to come from someone who does not support a
market economy. The New Deal, after all, was the largest peacetime
expansion of federal government power in this century. Moreover,
Gingrich's view that FDR saved us from the Depression is indefensible;
Roosevelt's policies prolonged and deepened it.

There's no doubt that Roosevelt changed the character of the American
government--for the worse. Many of the reforms of the 1930s remain
embedded in policy today: acreage allotments, price supports and
marketing controls in agriculture, extensive regulation of private
securities, federal intrusion into union-management relations,
government lending and insurance activities, the minimum wage, national
unemployment insurance, Social Security and welfare payments, production
and sale of electrical power by the federal government, fiat money--the
list goes on.

Roosevelt's revolution began with his inaugural address, which left no
doubt about his intentions to seize the moment and harness it to his
purposes. Best remembered for its patently false line that "the only
thing we have to fear is fear itself," it also called for extraordinary
emergency governmental powers.

The day after FDR took the oath of office, he issued a proclamation
calling Congress into a special session. Before it met, he proclaimed a
national banking holiday--an action he had refused to endorse when
Hoover suggested it three days earlier.

Invoking the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, Roosevelt declared that
"all banking transactions shall be suspended." Banks were permitted to
reopen only after case-by-case inspection and approval by the
government, a procedure that dragged on for months. This action
heightened the public's sense of crisis and allowed him to ignore
traditional restraints on the power of the central government.

In their understanding of the Depression, Roosevelt and his economic
advisers had cause and effect reversed. They did not recognize that
prices had fallen because of the Depression. They believed that the
Depression prevailed because prices had fallen. The obvious remedy,
then, was to raise prices, which they decided to do by creating
artificial shortages. Hence arose a collection of crackpot policies
designed to cure the Depression by cutting back on production. The
scheme was so patently self-defeating that it's hard to believe anyone
seriously believed it would work.

The goofiest application of the theory had to do with the price of gold.
Starting with the bank holiday and proceeding through a massive
gold-buying program, Roosevelt abandoned the gold standard, the bedrock
restraint on inflation and government growth. He nationalized the
monetary gold stock, forbade the private ownership of gold (except for
jewelry, scientific or industrial uses, and foreign payments), and
nullified all contractual promises--whether public or private, past or
future--to pay in gold.

Besides being theft, gold confiscation didn't work. The price of gold
was increased from $20.67 to $35.00 per ounce, a 69% increase, but the
domestic price level increased only 7% between 1933 and 1934, and over
rest of the decade it hardly increased at all. FDR's devaluation
provoked retaliation by other countries, further strangling
international trade and throwing the world's economies further into
depression.

Having hobbled the banking system and destroyed the gold standard, he
turned next to agriculture. Working with the politically influential
Farm Bureau and the Bernard Baruch gang, Roosevelt pushed through the
Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933. It provided for acreage and
production controls, restrictive marketing agreements, and regulatory
licensing of processors and dealers "to eliminate unfair practices and
charges." It authorized new lending, taxed processors of agricultural
commodities, and rewarded farmers who cut back production.

The objective was to raise farm commodity prices until they reached a
much higher "parity" level. The millions who could hardly feed and
clothe their families can be forgiven for questioning the nobility of a
program designed to make food and fiber more expensive. Though this was
called an "emergency" measure, no President since has seen fit to
declare the emergency over.

Industry was virtually nationalized under Roosevelt's National
Industrial Recovery Act of 1933. Like most New Deal legislation, this
resulted from a compromise of special interests: businessmen seeking
higher prices and barriers to competition, labor unionists seeking
governmental sponsorship and protection, social workers wanting to
control working conditions and forbid child labor, and the proponents of
massive spending on public works.

The legislation allowed the President to license businesses or control
imports to achieve the vaguely identified objectives of the act. Every
industry had to have a code of fair competition. The codes contained
provisions setting minimum wages, maximum hours, and "decent" working
conditions. The policy rested on the dubious notion that what the
country needed most was cartelized business, higher prices, less work,
and steep labor costs.

To administer the act, Roosevelt established the National Recovery
Administration and named General Hugh Johnson, a crony of Baruch's and a
former draft administrator, as head. Johnson adopted the famous Blue
Eagle emblem and forced businesses to display it and abide by NRA codes.
There were parades, billboards, posters, buttons, and radio ads, all
designed to silence those who questioned the policy. Not since the First
World War had there been anything like the outpouring of hoopla and
coercion. Cutting prices became "chiseling" and the equivalent of
treason. The policy was enforced by a vast system of agents and
informers.

Eventually the NRA approved 557 basic and 189 supplementary codes,
covering about 95% of all industrial employees. Big businessmen
dominated the writing and implementing of the documents. They generally
aimed to suppress competition. Figuring prominently in this effort were
minimum prices, open price schedules, standardization of products and
services, and advance notice of intent to change prices. Having gained
the government's commitment to stilling competition, the tycoons looked
forward to profitable repose.

But the initial enthusiasm evaporated when the NRA did not deliver, and
for obvious reasons. Even its corporate boosters began to object to the
regimentation it required. By the time the Supreme Court invalidated the
whole undertaking in early 1935, most of its former supporters had lost
their taste for it.

Striking down the NRA, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes wrote that
"extraordinary conditions do not create or enlarge constitutional
power." Congress "cannot delegate legislative power to the President to
exercise an unfettered discretion to make whatever laws he thinks may be
needed."

Despite the decision, the NRA-approach did not disappear completely. Its
economic logic reappeared in the National Labor Relations Act of 1935,
reinstating union privileges, and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938,
stipulating regulations for wages and working hours. The Bituminous Coal
Act of 1937 reinstated an NRA-type code for the coal industry, including
price-fixing. The Works Progress Administration made the government the
employer of last resort. Using the Connally Act of 1935, Roosevelt
cartelized the oil industry. Eventually, of course, the Supreme Court
came around to Roosevelt's way of thinking.

Yet after all this, the grand promise of an end to the suffering was
never fulfilled. As the state sector drained the private sector,
controlling it in alarming detail, the economy continued to wallow in
depression. The combined impact of Herbert Hoover's and Roosevelt's
interventions meant that the market was never allowed to correct itself.
Far from having gotten us out of the Depression, FDR prolonged and
deepened it, and brought unnecessary suffering to millions.

Even more tragic is the lasting legacy of Roosevelt. The commitment of
both masses and elites to individualism, free markets, and limited
government suffered a blow in the 1930s from which it has yet to recover
fully. The theory of the mixed economy is still the dominant ideology
backing government policy. In place of old beliefs about liberty, we
have greater toleration of, and even positive demand for, collectivist
schemes that promise social security, protection from the rigors of
market competition, and something for nothing.

"You can never study Franklin Delano Roosevelt too much," Gingrich says.
But if we study FDR with admiration, the lesson we take away is this:
government is an immensely useful means for achieving one's private
aspirations, and resorting to this reservoir of potentially appropriable
benefits is perfectly legitimate. One thing we have to fear is
politicians who believe this.

-------------------------------------------

Robert Higgs, an adjunct scholar with the Mises Institute, is research
director of the Independent Institute

[Gunner Asch]

On Tue, 13 Dec 2011 20:38:28 -0800, Larry Jaques
<lja...@invalid.diversifycomm.com> wrote:

>On Tue, 13 Dec 2011 20:22:08 -0800 (PST), "Denis G."
><guille...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On Dec 11, 11:57 am, "clarkmagnu...@gmail.com"
>><clarkmagnu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Henry Morgenthau, Jr., FDR's Treasury Secretary 1934 -1945:
>>>
>>> "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work.
>>>
>>> The book to read on what a mess that FDR made when he turned a rescission into a depression is
>
>"recission"? Somebody rescind Clark. Time for a twit filter, Denis.
>
>
>>> http://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Man-History-Great-Depression/dp/00662...
>>
>>Here another:
>>http://www.amazon.com/Roosevelt-Myth-John-T-Flynn/dp/0930073274/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323836275&sr=1-1
>
>So, is this the truth, unfiltered by the times, or is it revisionist
>history? Who here was alive (and paying attention) back then that can
>remember it?

My father..and his brothers and sisters were alive and paying attention
during those times.

[Denis G.]

On Dec 13, 10:38 pm, Larry Jaques <ljaq...@invalid.diversifycomm.com>
wrote:

> On Tue, 13 Dec 2011 20:22:08 -0800 (PST), "Denis G."
>

> <guillemd53...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >On Dec 11, 11:57 am, "clarkmagnu...@gmail.com"
> ><clarkmagnu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Henry Morgenthau, Jr., FDR's Treasury Secretary 1934 -1945:
>
> >> "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work.
>
> >> The book to read on what a mess that FDR made when he turned a rescission into a depression is
>
> "recission"?  Somebody rescind Clark.  Time for a twit filter, Denis.
>
> >>http://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Man-History-Great-Depression/dp/00662...
>
> >Here another:

> >http://www.amazon.com/Roosevelt-Myth-John-T-Flynn/dp/0930073274/ref=s...

>
> So, is this the truth, unfiltered by the times, or is it revisionist
> history?  Who here was alive (and paying attention) back then that can
> remember it?
>
> --
> However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.
>                                                    -- Sir Winston Churchill

I don't know what to tell you Larry. Choose your poison, I guess.
The mainstream isn't always right.

[Larry Jaques]

On Wed, 14 Dec 2011 03:34:55 -0800 (PST), "Denis G."
<guille...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Dec 13, 10:38 pm, Larry Jaques <ljaq...@invalid.diversifycomm.com>
>wrote:
>> On Tue, 13 Dec 2011 20:22:08 -0800 (PST), "Denis G."
>>
>> <guillemd53...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >On Dec 11, 11:57 am, "clarkmagnu...@gmail.com"
>> ><clarkmagnu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> Henry Morgenthau, Jr., FDR's Treasury Secretary 1934 -1945:
>>
>> >> "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work.
>>
>> >> The book to read on what a mess that FDR made when he turned a rescission into a depression is
>>
>> "recission"?  Somebody rescind Clark.  Time for a twit filter, Denis.
>>
>> >>http://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Man-History-Great-Depression/dp/00662...
>>
>> >Here another:
>> >http://www.amazon.com/Roosevelt-Myth-John-T-Flynn/dp/0930073274/ref=s...
>>
>> So, is this the truth, unfiltered by the times, or is it revisionist
>> history?  Who here was alive (and paying attention) back then that can
>> remember it?
>>
>

>I don't know what to tell you Larry. Choose your poison, I guess.
>The mainstream isn't always right.

I prefer the truth over poison, thanks, no matter how bitter it may
be. But truth is hard to come by.

[clarkm...@gmail.com]

FDR was good for the US like Stalin was good for the USSR.

Both were poison.

[Hawke]

On 12/14/2011 9:01 AM, clarkm...@gmail.com wrote:
> FDR was good for the US like Stalin was good for the USSR.
>
> Both were poison.

See, now there is the view held by a tiny minority of Americans who are
also members of the right wing community. It's the exact opposite of
what the vast majority of believe about FDR. They consider him a great
president, as does Newt Gringrich.

Hawke

[GeoLane at PTD dot NET]

On Tue, 13 Dec 2011 20:38:28 -0800, Larry Jaques
<lja...@invalid.diversifycomm.com> wrote:

>>> The book to read on what a mess that FDR made when he turned a rescission into a depression is
>

>>> http://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Man-History-Great-Depression/dp/00662...
>>
>>Here another:
>>http://www.amazon.com/Roosevelt-Myth-John-T-Flynn/dp/0930073274/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323836275&sr=1-1
>

Here's another - FDR's Folly.

http://www.amazon.com/FDRs-Folly-Roosevelt-Prolonged-Depression/dp/140005477X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323920313&sr=1-1

The public school textbooks painted Roosevelt as a hero, but my
parents, particularly my father disagreed. Two thoughts that I
remember were that he felt it was dishonest to try to pack the Supreme
Court in order to bypass the intent of the constitution, and that WW
II was what ended the great depression, not anything dealing with his
economic policies.

In a (civil) discussion of the latter with one of our regular
contributors here off list, that individual's thought was that WWII
ended the depression because of the massive amounts of money that were
spent - i.e. the Keynsian stimulus of war spending. My take was that
it ended it by removing men from the workforce, and creating
artificial shortages of labor, and artificial shortages of goods
through rationing and redirecting the output of industry to war
materials so that there was pent up demand.

I say it somewhat jokingly, but a good bout of inflation would cure
our current economic situation. It would relieve the debtors by
allowing them to pay back in cheap dollars, and create demand because
people would be buying things before the price could go up. Not sure
what that would do to the government and its social obligations
though. Also have to admit that the stagflation of the 70s wasn't a
great time economically for the country as a whole, but those of us
with student loans and mortgages made out pretty well for the times.

RWL

[Ed Huntress]

On Wed, 14 Dec 2011 22:59:42 -0500, GeoLane at PTD dot NET <GeoLane at
PTD dot NET> wrote:

>On Tue, 13 Dec 2011 20:38:28 -0800, Larry Jaques
><lja...@invalid.diversifycomm.com> wrote:
>
>
>>>> The book to read on what a mess that FDR made when he turned a rescission into a depression is
>>
>>>> http://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Man-History-Great-Depression/dp/00662...
>>>
>>>Here another:
>>>http://www.amazon.com/Roosevelt-Myth-John-T-Flynn/dp/0930073274/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323836275&sr=1-1
>>
>
>Here's another - FDR's Folly.
>
>http://www.amazon.com/FDRs-Folly-Roosevelt-Prolonged-Depression/dp/140005477X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323920313&sr=1-1
>
>The public school textbooks painted Roosevelt as a hero, but my
>parents, particularly my father disagreed. Two thoughts that I
>remember were that he felt it was dishonest to try to pack the Supreme

>Court in order to bypass the intent of the constitution,...

Certainly true, but it didn't happen. The Supreme Court was already
evolving away from its "anything goes" approach to corporations and
banks, all on their own, before FDR even proposed the Court-packing.
See "The switch in time that saved nine."

> and that WW
>II was what ended the great depression, not anything dealing with his
>economic policies.

Which did he think did it, billions in deficit spending (and then
blowing up the products), wage and price controls, or conscripting
millions of men to work for the government?

WWII most certainly WAS an economic issue, the purest example of
central-planning socialism, deficit spending on goods that had no
productive value, and forced labor that we've ever had in the US. And
it worked like a charm.

If you study it from a conservative economics point of view, it's
scary as hell.

>
>In a (civil) discussion of the latter with one of our regular
>contributors here off list, that individual's thought was that WWII
>ended the depression because of the massive amounts of money that were
>spent - i.e. the Keynsian stimulus of war spending. My take was that
>it ended it by removing men from the workforce, and creating
>artificial shortages of labor, and artificial shortages of goods
>through rationing and redirecting the output of industry to war
>materials so that there was pent up demand.

Of course. But no conservative economist would ever say that
increasing demand by blocking its fulfillment could accomplish a
recovery from a recession or depression. In the conservative economics
world, the factor that moves an economy is production, not
consumption. Consumption just follows production in conservative
economics theory, and if you reduce the production of consumer goods,
the demand declines accordingly.

That is, unless the consumers are working at and getting paid for
doing something else -- like a make-work program, or producing war
materiel, which, economically, are the same thing. Conservative
economists say that can't work to expand an economy. Shhhh...don't
tell them about what happened after WWII. d8-)

>I say it somewhat jokingly, but a good bout of inflation would cure
>our current economic situation.

It's not a joke. The major liberal economists, including some Nobel
Prize winners, are saying exactly the same thing.

The middle class usually benefits from inflation if debt is high and
economic activity is low. It's the moneyed class that suffers from it.
And they've built anti-inflation into the conservative catechism.

> It would relieve the debtors by
>allowing them to pay back in cheap dollars, and create demand because
>people would be buying things before the price could go up.

Exactly.

> Not sure
>what that would do to the government and its social obligations
>though.

That depends more on economic growth than anything else. If moderate
amounts of inflation increase economic activity, that would outweigh
the increased cost of fulfilling those obligations. This is not
speculation. The effect of bumping up growth rates by even two or
three percent is huge, in terms of government revenues. That is,
unless we slash corporate income taxes.

> Also have to admit that the stagflation of the 70s wasn't a
>great time economically for the country as a whole, but those of us
>with student loans and mortgages made out pretty well for the times.
>
>RWL

It was a very confused economic situation, and nobody really was sure
of what to do to cure it. Except for Paul Volcker. He had faith that
strangling the money supply, causing a steep recession, and driving up
unemployment rates (they hit over 10%) would kill us or cure us.
Fortunately, we survived the poison treatment and recovered. He is a
very brave man.

Carter hired him and he started to work right away. Reagan was smart
enough to keep him on to finish the job.

--
Ed Huntress

[dca...@krl.org]

On Dec 15, 12:02 am, Ed Huntress <huntre...@optonline.net> wrote:


>>
> WWII most certainly WAS an economic issue, the purest example of
> central-planning socialism, deficit spending on goods that had no
> productive value, and forced labor that  we've ever had in the US. And
> it worked like a charm.
>

> Ed Huntress

A lot of people would disagree with the statement about spending on
goods with no productive value. Winning the war certainly had some
value. There was also a lot of things done that had value. Things
like building plants to produce nylon and teflon.

Dan

[clarkm...@gmail.com]

Stalin and FDR were both effective, just in the wrong direction for MY values.

If you are a collectivist, you may like them.

[clarkm...@gmail.com]

>>
> WWII most certainly WAS an economic issue, the purest example of
> central-planning socialism, deficit spending on goods that had no
> productive value, and forced labor that we've ever had in the US. And
> it worked like a charm.
>

> Ed Huntress

FDR built lots of ships that sunk, and that kept us busy.
FDR had lots of propaganda news reels with no rebuttal.

And Stalin built a canal too, that kept many busy.
Stalin had lots of propaganda news reels with no rebuttal.



Central planning keeps us poor and under control.

To individualists, you are selling slavery with your big government collectivism.

And with the internet, we will fight the enslavement by liberals.

[Ed Huntress]

On Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:05:12 -0800 (PST), "clarkm...@gmail.com"
<clarkm...@gmail.com> wrote:

>>>
>> WWII most certainly WAS an economic issue, the purest example of
>> central-planning socialism, deficit spending on goods that had no
>> productive value, and forced labor that we've ever had in the US. And
>> it worked like a charm.
>>
>
>> Ed Huntress
>
>FDR built lots of ships that sunk, and that kept us busy.

Not bad for a man with polio, who couldn't walk, eh? I didn't even
know he could weld.

>FDR had lots of propaganda news reels with no rebuttal.

Hitler and the Imperial Japanese produced lots of rebuttals.

>
>And Stalin built a canal too, that kept many busy.
>Stalin had lots of propaganda news reels with no rebuttal.

See above.

>
>
>
>Central planning keeps us poor and under control.

Right. Except when it doesn't, as during WWII.

>
>To individualists, you are selling slavery with your big government collectivism.

That wasn't MY collectivism. It was America's, during the war.

>
>And with the internet, we will fight the enslavement by liberals.

Here's the key fact, Clark. There was a statement made here that FDR's
policies didn't get us out of the Depresssion. WWII did it.

There are two problems with that. First, if you look at the numbers,
you'll see that GDP growth during FDR's term before 1937 was the
highest in US history. That, after a depression precipitated during a
very conservative economic regime. After 1936, there was a hitch in
growth when we tried to balance the budget. Then we knocked off that
nonsense, and we had growth again.

Second, from an economic point of view, WWII was a socialist's dream.
It violated every principle of conservative economics. War is politics
by other means, and you can argue the politics of why we did it all
you want. But that doesn't change the basic economic point: it was
collectivist, deficit-spending, and authoritarian rule, especially
with the draft. Much of the production was shear make-work, with no
socially redeeming value at all. It DID have redemption in the
business of warfare. But that's a political event. The Depression
didn't make us go to war. Being attacked made us go to war.

Does that suggest to you that I favor those things? If you think so,
you're an idiot.

What it DOES suggest is that the earlier poster's (father's) point,
that those "socialist" policies didn't work, runs smack into the fact
that what he says DID work, WWII, was vastly more of a socialist
enterprise in economic terms.

So the ideological right-wing theories are a lot of crap, as always,
and it was proven through actual experience during and after the war.
That doesn't mean that authoritarianism or conscription or central
planning are good things. It does mean that they, obviously and from
experience, neither deepened nor worsened the Great Depression.

--
Ed Huntress

[Hawke]

On 12/15/2011 2:56 PM, clarkm...@gmail.com wrote:
> Stalin and FDR were both effective, just in the wrong direction for MY values.
>
> If you are a collectivist, you may like them.

I'm an American. I think that makes me part of a socialist collective.
I'm told this by conservatives every day. I guess that means you are
too. After all these years of fighting to find out we're socialists
living under a system that collectively cares for the health, and old
age of it's citizens, what a surprise. What a country!

Hawke