I’d tend to agree with this but there is one big problem. If we had a very sharp depression, Al qaeda and other bad actors would take advantage of the situation.
We did not and still do not have a president that would inspire hope and confidence through extremely difficult times. FDR was for many of the wrong policies but he was one of the few presidents that could do this. Reagan was another.
That’s a good point but a poor argument because the only solutions to our problem now will leave us in far worse shape than a short depression.
A sharp depression wouldn’t necessarily cripple us or our military but what will is what the government and Fed have done. The only solution that will be a permanent fix would be to force the banks into receivership now, and because of our current economic condition, doing so would be far more disastrous.
But that’s not what’s happening. Instead, the Fed is going to try to print our way out of this mess, which is like taking a pail of water out of a lake, and dumping it into the other side of the same lake.
Look at 1970s food prices (just Google it). You’ll see that all the food we buy today is anywhere from 300% to 1000% higher than it was forty years ago. Butter that was .39 a pound is now $3.00 a pound, etc. That’s inflation.
But then if you consider the immense monetary printing that’s going on now, you’ll realize it will take less than three or four years for QE2 to do the same thing to us today because we’re monetizing our own debt exponentially higher than we’ve ever done in the past.
So when the dollar is worthless, the economy in shambles, a loaf of bread costs $15.00 and even rice and beans are mucho expensive, people can’t afford to heat their homes and are living under bridges, etc, what position will we be in and will Al Quaeda be the worst problem we face?
Hint: learn to speak Mandarin.
Bottom line is that no excuse exists as the end result will be far worse than Al Quaeda.
“We did not and still do not have a president that would inspire hope and confidence through extremely difficult times. FDR was for many of the wrong policies but he was one of the few presidents that could do this.”
Historians love this sort of argument, since it allows them to do what they already want to do anyway, namely personify eras and bundles of otherwise diverse events. Airmchair psychology is easier than pouring over charts, graphs, and other economic data. I’m not saying they shouldn’t focus on personalities, either. Just that it has little or nothing to do with economics, which is the issue at hand.
What we say when we say FDR had the power to “inspire confidence” is that he was a good politician. That is, a good democratic politician, not necessarily a statesman. Though he was that, too, during the war; or part of the war, anyway, not counting the time he was the walking dead, pandering to “Uncle Joe” Stalin. What I’m saying is he was popular and able to be re-elected. Which is useful to FDR, his party, and its ideology. But I’m at a loss as to why it seems so important to us, at this great distance.
Saying FDR was good for the economy because he was an adept politician is like saying Nancy Pelosi was good for the democratic party because she was good at pushing through legislation. I don’t have to tell you her very strengths were a liability. So it was with FDR, economically speaking. Politics is not economics. Great things in one arena are not great—in fact, often are genuinely harmful—in the other. Though economies require some fundamental political interference (the rule of law, for instance) to thrive, it does not follow that interference is good.
Put aside for the moment the (correct) argument that FDR actively made the economy worse. His “fear itself” trope is dangerous and misleading, in my opinion, but let’s say it inspired people. What does it benefit an economy to inspire the people without recovering? Whether or not FDR wrecked chances for recovery, one thing is certain: he didn’t make anything better. Even if you bend over backward to give him credit for pulling us out of the nadir of ‘32 and ‘33, things got worse again in ‘37 and didn’t get better until ‘46.
All I’m asking is, why do we care so much that he was popular? If there was no discernable economic benefit to his pleasing persona, why the heck do we keep bringing it up in connection to economics? It has nothing to do with that. He might as well have been a preacher or a self-help guru so far as Joe Futures and Sally Grossdomestic were concerned.
I suppose it’s worse to have a depression and an unlikable president. But I just don’t care about publicity and political advertising as much as other people.