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I think most informed Freepers ask the Question...How did a relatively minor change in the Fordney-McCumber Tariff precipitate the Great Depression...why are Smoot and Hawley being "scapegoated"???

Raising any tax at the beginning of an economic downturn is cosmically stupid...and tariffs are, like it or not, taxes. Once the retaliatory tariffs went into place, they turned a severe market correction into a global depression. Smoot-Hawley gets the blame because it started the stampede.

It is likely that those claimed-to-be "retaliatory" tariffs would have been laid by the foreign trading partners, no matter what we did -- even if we lowered our tariffs. The blame on Smoot-Hawley is a spin, and false in most regards.

Face it, tariffs worked for most of our Nations's history, prior to it becoming a defacto socialist state. Tariffs are the preferred mechanism of financing Federal activites -- according to the wisdom of founders and the generations in our first two-hundred years.

I think most informed Freepers ask the Question...How did a relatively minor change in the Fordney-McCumber Tariff precipitate the Great Depression...why are Smoot and Hawley being "scapegoated"??? Answer...to deflect attention from the Institution that really turned a minor downturn into a full fleged Depression, namely, the Federal Reserve through its manipulation of bank Reserve Requirements.

The commercial banks called in the business loans to such an extent, that tens of thousands of businesses went insolvent, fired their employees, and closed their doors.

Once again, I repeat my remarks about the Scapegoating of Smoot-Hawley and the REVISIONIST HISTORY vis a vis the FEDERAL RESERVE!!!In the early 1940's, people KNEW the FEDERAL RESERVE had done them in!!!

Tariffs...Shamiriffs...

Calling the LOANS on the BULK of small to Mid-size Business...EVERYONE KNEW!!!

The problem today is almost ALL so called BUSHBOTS have been willingly BRAINWASHED!!!

Of course, I had the "luxury" of learning "geography" and "HISTORY" for FIVE YEARS in grade school...we were TESTED on the CONTENT of the Smoot Hawley AND the FORDNEY-McCUMBER Tariffs...something you Public School survey...skim once over lightly...pupils swallowed...HOOK, LINE, and SINKER!!!