Posted on 09/10/2012 2:25:46 PM PDT by jazusamo
Former president Bill Clinton told the Democratic National Convention that Barack Obama has a plan to rescue the economy, and only the fact that the Republicans stood in his way has stopped him from getting the economy out of the doldrums.
From all this, and much else that is said in the media and on the campaign trail, you might think that the economy requires government intervention to revive and create jobs. It is Beltway dogma that the government has to "do something."
History tells a different story. For the first 150 years of this country's existence, the federal government felt no great need to "do something" when the economy turned down. Over that long span of time, the economic downturns were neither as deep nor as long lasting as they have been since the federal government decided that it had to "do something" in the wake of the stock market crash of 1929, which set a new precedent.
One of the last of the "do nothing" presidents was Warren G. Harding. In 1921, under President Harding, unemployment hit 11.7 percent — higher than it has been under President Obama. Harding did nothing to get the economy stimulated.
Far from spending more money to try to "jump start" the economy, President Harding actually reduced government spending, as the tax revenues declined during the economic downturn.
This was not a matter of absent-mindedly neglecting the economy. President Harding deliberately rejected the urging of his own Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover, to intervene.
The 11.7 percent unemployment rate in 1921 fell to 6.7 percent in 1922, and then to 2.4 percent in 1923...
(Excerpt) Read more at creators.com ...
In 1929 before the Great Depression international imports represented 4% of GNP and exports represented 5% of GNP. And we already had large import tariffs of 15% to protect American Industry before the Smoot Harley tariffs which were enacted too late to be the cause of the Great Depression.
Now International imports represent 16% of GNP and import tariffs average just 1%.
We'll recover when our standard of living matches the third world, or when government borrows more money to subsidize our chinese purchases.
According to B Wacky, that is a failed Imperialistic policy of the past.
Suffer for Dear Leader~!
“Despite demands that Mitt Romney spell out his plan for reviving the economy, we can only hope that Governor Romney plans to stop the government from intervening in the economy and gumming up the works, so that the economy can recover on its own.”
Amen!
Thanks again for all the pings today jaz. I passed them on to my brother in Oregon, and an old friend of ours from High School days who now lives in North Carolina. I told them about your pings awhile back, and they requested I send them the links so they could keep up with Dr. Sowell in a timely manner as well. I send them the Oliver North links as well.
“Plan? There ain’t no plan!” —Pigkiller character, in “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome”
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