Posted on 11/30/2009 6:56:36 PM PST by SeekAndFind
It does not give politicians more power, or more ability to buy votes and create near permanent voting blocks. Thus, in general, they do not support such polices, regardless of what they said and wrote in order to get elected in the first place.
Very true. But because of the Harding corruption, I’d have to rank Coolidge ahead of Harding...pretty much continued the Harding policies but without the corruption.
Hardly, but that is the Textbook Answer. As the article points out, Harding's corruption was as nothing compared to that of several of the last few Presidents.
The main point is, he helped along the recovery that was already beginning. He also didn't screw it up, causing a "double dip", and much deeper recession.
(Which is what we now call what we previously called "depressions", to distinguish them from the Great Depression, which is often referred to as merely, THE Depression. )
depression ping/Harding
ping 4 later
Sound of heel of hand hitting forehead.
Harding had some corruption issues but apparently he was a better President than all but a couple of his successors.
I’d tried to tell my brother a couple weeks ago that the new deal made the depression worse. He didn’t think it helped but he balked at the idea that it hurt.
Do you have any ideas about this? I would be interested.”
I’ve wondered about that also. I think FDR stopped beating up on industry during the war years. New “initiatives” and other direct interventions in the economy probably slowed or stopped during the war. In effect, the war repealed or slowed the new deal. Then the war stopped, without resumption of the new deal. If the preceding is correct, ending the new deal had the effect of ending the depression.
“In the essay he mentions that it was not the war spending of WWII that got us out of the depression, but something else.
He neglects to mention what that is.
Do you have any ideas about this? I would be interested.”
Part of the explanation is there was a massive end run around the confiscatory tax rates of the ‘30’s encouraged by Army and Navy procurers who were trying to expand production of industry and commerce in order to obtain materials to fight the war.
There were teams of Army and Navy accountants and lawyers whose mission in life was to show companies how to circumvent the demented tax rates of the ‘30’s in order to expand.
Except, of course, when times were good the government did not rein in spending and set aside reserves. They like "Keynesian" when it suits their purpose.
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