Posted on 07/29/2009 2:11:00 PM PDT by mainestategop
Read Amity Schleas “The Forgotten Man”
Also, I haven’t read this book, but the author gives a review of it
http://radio.nationalreview.com/betweenthecovers/post/?q=ZGQ5MTZkMzUxNjNiNDUyOWJmZWQxMjBkNmE2OWM4MGU=
Finally - go to mises.org and search “New Deal.” One of the Austrian school’s biggest targets is the New Deal
One thing you need to understand is
that when people say that the New
Deal saved the US during the depression,
they mean what they say. It wasn’t
about improving the lives of the
people by improving the economy.
The people impressed by FDR are
not impressed that he turned the
economy around because they know
he didn’t do that. When they
say that he helped Americans, they
mean that he saved more and more
people from what they think is
worse than poverty. They think
FDR made more people dependant
on GOVERNMENT, which is MUCH
more desirable in their eyes
than wealth. Well-off people
are dependent, in their mind,
on free enterprise, which they
think is slavery.
SO...
FDR helped Americans by making
them less free, which is bad
to the Left.
Read Amity Schleas book
http://mises.org/freemarket_detail.aspx?control=515
http://mises.org/misesreview_detail.aspx?control=347
I would recommend turning off comments on youtube videos if you post it. That’s like piping in raw sewage into your living room.
Good recommended readings.
I would also recommend “The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Great Depression and the New Deal” by Robert P. Murphy.
Sometimes it is useful to see what the liberals thought about during the Great Depression. Eric Severeid’s “Not So Wild A Dream (1946)” was an eye opener for me. Wild Dreams indeed.
FDR’s New Deal didn’t bring an end to anything. WWII ended the Great Depression in America. Quickie chart on three key economic numbers during the Great Depression:
Year * Unemployment Rate * Top Tax Rate * Annual GDP
1930..... 8.7... 25%... $97.4 (billions)
1931... 15.9... 25%... $83.8
1932... 23.6... 63%... $67.6
1933... 24.9... 63%... $57.6
1934... 21.7... 63%... $61.2
1935... 20.1... 63%... $69.6
1936... 16.9... 79%... $78.5
1937... 14.3... 79%... $87.8
1938... 19.0... 79%... $89.0
1939... 17.2... 79%... $89.1
1940... 14.6... 81%... $96.8
1941..... 9.9... 81%... $114.1
1942..... 4.7... 88%... $144.3
Reach you own conclusions.
You were not present at our dinner table when I was a kid, so you did not hear the nightly speeches from our father about “The Great White Father” and his elimination of...
- individual effort
- restraint on government legally and in re spending
- the effect on small businesspeople
- the savaging of future values of currency by the unfunded mandate of Social Security that was not being held for ‘retirement’
- states rights
- individual rights
- government sovereignty in favor of ‘the 500’ (people who actually ruled the world)
Every night. Every single night, except for those times he left for work at 7 am and got home after 11 pm...for a 2.5% profit, worked for himself and bet the farm more than twice (and lost once). And guess what. He grew up as a democrat—but didn’t stay that way after the Great Depression I. It is only in the last few years that I have come to appreciate the desperation for hard work which accompanied him, my mother and all of us kids who worked our tails off from very young ages.
Even FDR Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau admitted the New Deal had failed. “We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work,” he declared in 1939. “We have never made good on our promises...I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started...And an enormous debt to boot!”
It is a great read.
Oh yes. All income earned over $25,000 per year were taxed at 100% under FDR. Look it up.
I would start by describing events they are unfamiliar with, to establish how the US economy functioned before “Ol’ Frank”. This is important, because Roosevelt was convinced that only radical and untested new ideas had to be used to replace centuries of free enterprise that existed before.
For this reason, have at least some familiarity with the Panic of 1837 and the Panic of 1893, which almost led to the bankruptcy of the federal government. Both of these will make telling points later.
Herbert Hoover’s actions were based on the very best economic theory of the time, with some mistakes, granted, but in a normal time would have restored the US economy. However, the Democrat congress went out of its way to thwart his efforts, seeking political gain from the national misery.
With Roosevelt’s ascension, the first theories he tried were those that were seemingly popular in Europe. These were the economics of fascism, and while experimental, seemed to offer the fastest route to economic recovery, while avoiding the horrific mistakes of socialist-communism in Russia.
That is, the nationalization of industry, business, agriculture, education, and ought else had been tried by Lenin and shown themselves to be such miserable failures that Lenin disavowed them and created the New Economic Plan, which was to some extent capitalism reborn. But the Lenin died, and Stalin went back to doing what had already been proven didn’t work.
The irony of Europe was that, especially in Germany, the economy was already in recovery before the rise of Hitler, to a great extent because of the help and advice from the US. Hitler, of course, took credit for it, and the international assumption was that fascist economics was responsible.
The fascist “public-private partnership” was first tried in the US, to tepid result, because inexperienced bureaucrats knew little of how the industries the were supposed to “help”, functioned. And after the Nazis became obnoxious, these ideas tended to whither.
So Roosevelt’s next concept was the creation of an “easy credit” economy, in which the economy was inflated with the use of marginal credit, instead of fully collateralized credit. This was applied across the board, first to government, and the needs of the war, but then to the economy as a whole.
At the time, they did not foresee that this ever expanding outward spiral of debt would eventually consume our entire economy, and it took many years to do so, but now the experiment has finally reached its conclusion.
There is some truth that the Roosevelt economic experiment allowed the US to grow much faster than it would have otherwise, but this was not due to government action, but government inaction, allowing sensible economic rules to be broken for short term gains.
So now we face a situation of economic collapse even greater in some ways than the Great Depression. The US government will have to shrink at least by half. The national debt will likely have to be defaulted (see 1837). The great government largesse programs of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and fantasies about a national health care system, are all over. And even the “Pax Americana”, of a gigantic, all powerful military, will have to be substantially scaled down.
So the vision that Frank Roosevelt had, for a nation managed by a federal government intrusive enough to do so, at the expense to the modest authority given it by the constitution, is over.
We must now return to the economic model that existed before Frank Roosevelt, and for centuries before him. Or else our government faces bankruptcy (see 1893).
There are two types of default for the US government:
1. hard default: no payment to bondholders.
2. soft default: payment with devalued dollars.
I’d put the reneging on entitlement programs under
the soft-default category.
Number two is where your statements are correct. We won’t stop paying bondholders, but with what kind of dollars....
Good synopsis.
He did propose that but it didn't pass. The top income tax rate under FDR was only 92%.
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