Iriemon

The big difference between 1932 and today is that in 1932 the nation was already suffereing under an unimaginable depression, whereas today there has been little noticeable impact on the economy as of yet, and the concern is about preventing a great depression.

As far as Reagan's quote, it was made in jest. There are certainly times when most folks are glad the government has come to help.

__________________
Matthew 5:9

PeteEU

So you are denying that the US government spending has not ballooned under Bush 2?

__________________
PeteEU

JMak

Oh my goodness...what a load of garbage that's been placed into this thread.

First, Martin Hutchinson from the Prudent Bear web site looks at parallels with the Great Depression, and asks whether politicians are trying to make exactly the same mistakes made back then. He suggests they are.

Second:
PeteEU said: The nation's economy, according to the NBER, had been in recession since March of 2001 and the economy pulled out of recession in November 2001. So, no, a huge recession didn't hit after 9/11 and no the war against Afghanistan didn't help right the economy.

Oh, you weren't talking about the war in Afghanistan but the war in Iraq as having helped to pull the US out of a huge recession following 9/11?

You are aware that 9/11 happenened in 2001, right?

And that the US invaded Iraq in 2003, right?

WTF are you talking about?

More Pete: Hmmm, please address Japan's experience with this... Throughout the 80s and 90s Japan poured billions into public infrastructure programs in order to address their stagnant economy. Please explain the outcomes there and contrast/compare that to what you're claiming, please.

Short answer: it certainly did not help Japan's economy and those projects you cited, while providing short-term employment and assisting in speeding up transportation did not structurally improve those national economies.

And more and more frequently now we see research and studies revealing that government action is what caused the Depression to be Great. Here's an example: FDR's Folly. Research from Princeton, Yale, Brown, Stanford, the University of Chicago, University of Virginia, University of California (Berkeley), and other universities is presented in this one book alone arguing that government policies prolonged the depression.

Another? David M. Kennedy: Freedom from Fear.

More? Economic historian Robert Higgs that Roosevelt's policies were far from benign and prevented an economic recovery from taking hold sooner. Higgs goes so far as to call the New Deal "a collection of crackpot policies" that prolonged and deepened the depression, bringing unnecessary suffering to millions.

Gene Smiley's Rethinking the Great Depression is another.


After the Crash, Hoover browbeat business leaders to keep wages and prices high. He invested heavily in Public Works projects. In 1930, he signed the Smoot-Hawley tariff bill, which threw a wet blanket on international trade and probably did more to entrench the Depression than almost anything else.

By 1938 one in six Americans were still without jobs. It wasn't until WWII, when FDR started describing himself as "Dr. Win the War" instead of "Dr. New Deal" that America finally started to lift itself out of its state-imposed economic stupor.

Come on...I know we all learned of FDR's heroism and his new Deal policies in high school civics courses, however, that education didn't review the economic consequences of those policies but focused on the personalities, elections, speeches, "Fireside Chats," and other aspects of the New Deal's political story.

PeteEU

Yes I see you are.

And? There are similarities I do not deny that, but there are also huge differences. For one, the US of 1929 was a haven of right wing "free economics" exploiting the poor. When that failed, then everyone hurt big time. Today we do not have that, and the income distribution among Americans is far far better than it was in 1929... well there is a much bigger middle class at least, but the super uber rich are still there.

So the War on Terror is nothing I see and 9/11 had no impact on the economy.. . And you also seem to forget that Bush started to plan for Iraq just after 9/11.

Point is that after 9/11 the economy was tanking big time due to the fear. Stocks were down, air planes were on the ground and so on. You cant deny that the economy was in trouble the weeks and months after 9/11. You can also not deny that the US governments sudden massive spending on homeland security and the military after 9/11 did not have an impact on the economy as a whole. Its economics 101. Even FDR did it as did Reagan. Spending like nuts on military resources or other projects injects massive amount of money into the economy, create jobs and when talking about Reagan, having national to geo-political goals are reached.

You had to pick the one nation that has the weirdest "free" market on the planet. Japan's lack of economic growth has to do with how its financial and manufacturing society is built, and no amount of government spending can make up for the near feudal like economic system that Japan has even to this day. And one could claim that if it had not been for the massive injection of public money in infrastructure then the Japanese economy would have been much worse due to its structural problems. If you think the French economic system is "sick" then the Japanese is "brain dead" on the way to the morgue. Sure their work ethic is next to none even today, but that does not change the fact that its corporations are basicly huge government sponsored blocks on sticks, with ownership that goes back to the feudal days.

Yea and we also see rabid racist right wing anti-semists publish papers claiming that it is all the jews fault. Does this mean they are right?

These articles are on the fringe of economic thought not to mention historical fact.. basicly the usual right wing crack pot theorists that have a set goal with their papers.. to prove that their political views are correct instead of a unbiased view on the issue. Much like studies on media bias by the right or any other study done by the right in the US.

We also know that the neo cons and right wing in the US have during the last decade made their mission to rewrite history in their own narrow minded world view. Its not the first time they have taken a shot at FDR. I am just waiting for them to start taking more pot shots at Kennedy.

Listen, what you and your right wing friends are trying to do, is to state that if FDR had not done the New Deal and other projects then the depression would have been over faster... you had 3 years up to the New Deal to do something but nada happened. That is why FDR won and why he put those programs in. I see no evidence from any where, that free market economics have helped a nation out of a depression on its own.. in ever case I am aware off, from Germany in the 1920s to Argentina in the 1980s and 1990s, the free market failed to revitalize the economy, and it was only the intervention of government that dragged said economies out of its deep dark holes.

It still amazes me the blind faith in the "free market" by right wing Americans, when in fact the free market has not existed on this planet for a very long time, if at all. Not even during the days of religious conservative run governments in Europe was there a "free market", so all this claiming that the free market is the best since sliced bread .. is just that.. false and based on no factual empirical evidence. It is in fact a nice theory that is impossible to achieve. Now that does not mean that I advocate socialist policies of Marx and what not.. in fact I hate them, but I am a realist that admits that the market is not perfect and has to be helped along for the best of the WHOLE population and not just the few.

ARealConservative

I'm not the one making false assumptions about allegiances here.

ARealConservative

What does my position have to do with Bush 2?

ARealConservative

There is no doubt that the New Deal worsened the great depression and made it last longer. This is no longer even argued by serious scholars.

GDP is an idiotic method of determining the end, as I stated previously. Government spending is a primary factor in GDP. Nobody that is taken seriously would claim that deficit spending actually ended the depression.

Unemployment was extremely high until the outbreak of the war, so only the biggest New Deal apologists would try to claim the depression was over before WW2.

allsogreat

Well Arealconservative.....because you said so doesn't make it true...show me the proof

__________________
RITALIN - easier then Parenting

jfuh

But then

It's rather interesting watching you in the other thread speak of how anarchy is a joke but then in here sarcastically mock that "government is the salvation of us All".

__________________
The facts and science of the theory of anthropogenic Global warming

ARealConservative

Do you want proof of double digit unemployment until the outbreak of war, or do you want proof that government spending is a component of GDP?

Please be specific