Posted on 10/23/2019 4:01:45 PM PDT by NRx
Ok it's 90 years late, but hey it's CBS. (appx 8 mins)
All of which said, his predecessor Calvin Coolidge is my favorite president.
bump
The Fordney-McCumber Tariff of 1922 wasn’t appreciably different from the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930. The US basically had an unchanged level of taxation beginning with 1922.
The primary cause of the Great Depression was a collapse in the US banking system, as described by Friedman & Schwartz and Joseph Schumpeter.
Smoot-Hawley is what contemporaneous writers latched onto as a cause but the real damage was 30% of the American money supply evaporating in a series of cascading bank failures from 1930-33.
My g-grandfather just put his two weeks pay in the bank in a little town in Iowa.
The next day, the bank closed.
The same family is running a bank nearby.
Not sure how much of FDR you have studied. When I didn’t know much about him thanks to my secondary and college education, I had a neutral-to-favorable view of him. After studying him on my own in the years after from a variety of authors (pro- and anti-FDR), like it or not, he ranks with Washington, Lincoln as most influential. But FDR continues to be taught in a positive way to the public. Unfortunately that portrait is like the photos, and how his poor health was (not) reported to the public - done in a way to keep you from seeing the real FDR. He changed the US, and not for the good in so many ways. (FWIW - Trump has the potential to change the USA in profound ways to take the 4th spot as most influential President; a second term will give him the opportunity. Reagan will be ranked behind him, and I really liked Ronnie back when).
FDR heart was in the right place? Where should one start? Threatening the SUpreme Court with expansion to get his unconstitutional programs legally blessed, finally? Let’s do something “small” - He refused to integrate the services in the time of war despite black leaders personally appealing to him in his office for integration well before the war started. Heart in the right place - not from my indepenedent studies. Influential, game changer = yes, but did some wrong things that we are still paying for today, and beyond.
Milton Friedman said that the most important piece of legislation to come out of the Great Depression was the creation of FDIC, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
Prior to FDIC, when a bank failed every depositor’s money simply disappeared. And in the three years from 1930-33 one third of all American banks collapsed, wiping out the savings of millions of Americans.
No other country in the world had similar damage. A peculiarity of American banking law prohibited branch banking, something which could have provided small rural banks with large money center partners in a crisis.
*** But his heart was in the right place and that counts for a lot with me ***
Strange statement.
FDR was a saint to my family (who lived\suffered\survived the as past of the “greatest generation”) and that would be something they would say.
humanitarian ? maybe ‘cept for sanctioning the imprisonment of Japanese-Americans ?
Interesting article here.
https://livingnewdeal.org/glossary/income-and-wealth-taxes-1934-1941/
FDR had 5 tax increases mostly against income (to include SS) - 1935 was a doozy though I’m guessing it didn’t affect a lot of people.
FDR embraced Hoover’s Revenue Act of 1932...even though it included taxes on consumption of which FDR did n’t appear to be a fan.
There was also a Revenue Act of 1934; 1935; 1936; 1937; 1940.
humanitarian ? early maybe, but later ? sanctioning the imprisonment of Japanese-Americans ?
what my folks always talked about was FDR kept giving them hope and I can’t take that away from him\them.
I was referring to Hoover, not FDR. In re-reading my comment I can see where that was not clear.
See my #8.
People normally forget that Hoover was a progressive, he was a part of Wilson's cabinet. I am quite convinced that his electoral fight against FDR over the definition of the word "Liberal" played a large part in converting him toward conservatism. This election in 1932 is when progressives took over the word "liberal" and have used it as camouflage ever since.
FDR was a massive liar and a massive propagandist aided by a sympathetic media, and I think that did in some degree catch Hoover off guard because his viewpoint was "I'm one of you guys, I'm a fellow progressive. I was with Wilson! Why are you throwing me under the bus? Why are you lying about me? And why are we corrupting the word liberal into a new meaning?"
Coolidge by all accounts was awesome he didn’t think much of Hoover though
Without Warren Harding, there would be no Coolidge. Coolidge merely continued Harding’s excellent policies. Harding and Treasury Secretary Mellon resolved the Wilson Recession in record time and cut spending and government. The last time it was legitimately done. Harding is reviled by historians for proving conservatism works. FDR did everything opposite to him, and Hoover did, too (despite retaining Mellon as Treas Sec).
FDR thought Stalin was a swell guy.
Hoobert Heever.
The bank run scene in "It's A Wonderful Life" is what prompted me to read about how banking works.
Thanks for your comments. I’ve done the same from time to time, usually caused by my bad editing before sending.
FDR’s heart, mind, and soul were definitely NOT in the ‘right’ place.
The man was evil. Pure evil.
He got the United Nations created during WWII because he learned from his predecessor that the only chance of getting it passed was during a war. To NOT accept the United Nations during a war would be viewed by the American people of that time as traitorous.
FDR wanted into the war so badly he salivated over it.
He let the fleet be placed at Pearl Harbor. The American version of a ‘KICK ME,’ sign.
He also knew ahead of time of the attack because we had the means to crack the Japanese code. To protect the ships, men, and civilians though would have meant disclosing we had the means to crack that code.
And more importantly, he really, really desired to get us into the war because the bankers needed to have their loans paid back.
The man was a freaking travesty upon the American people.
“FDR thought Stalin was a swell guy.”
FDR also had some people people very close to him (e.g. Harry Hopkins) that influenced him for Stalin’s benefit. FDR seemed to bend over forward for Stalin. Some say he really feared Stalin making a deal with Hitler and that is why he went overboard with Stalin. Tehran and Yalta conferences were disasters for FDR and the US. Brett Baier has a book out now about Tehran meeting ... FDR-Churchill-Stalin, haven’t read it... yet, though I saw his 1 hr show about it - Brett was too kind to FDR legacy in his show.
Harry Hopkins was a Red!
We didn’t break Japan’s JN-25 Naval Code until after Pearl Harbor. We had partially broken Purple, their diplomatic code, but Japan carefully segregated military plans from their diplomatic traffic.
There was nothing unusual about stationing the Pacific Fleet at Pearl. It was 4,000 miles from Japan at a time when refueling at sea was new. A large segment of the Navy thought battleships were still the main strike weapon. It’s only after the fact that we think an air attack on Hawaii should have been expected.
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