FDR's Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression

What the Critics Say: " Very readable, factual, and insightful - and endorsed by two Nobel Prize-winning economists." (Thomas Sowell, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University)

In the minds of historians and the American public alike, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was one of our greatest presidents, not least because he supposedly saved America from the Great Depression. But as historian Jim Powell reveals in this groundbreaking book, Roosevelt's New Deal policies actually prolonged and exacerbated the economic disaster, swelled the federal government, and prevented the country from turning around quickly.

In today's turbulent domestic and global environment, eerily similar to that of the 1930s, it's more important than ever before to uncover and understand the truth of our history, lest we be doomed to repeat it. You'll never look at FDR in the same way again. By the book here.

" Admirers of FDR credit his New Deal with restoring the American economy after the disastrous contraction of 1929-33. Truth to tell_as Powell demonstrates without a shadow of a doubt_the New Deal hampered recovery from the contraction, prolonged and added to unemployment, and set the stage for ever more intrusive and costly government. Powell's analysis is thoroughly documented, relying on an impressive variety of popular and academic literature both contemporary and historical."_ Milton Friedman, Nobel Laureate, Hoover Institution

"There is a critical and often forgotten difference between disaster and tragedy. Disasters happen to us all, no matter what we do. Tragedies are brought upon ourselves by hubris. The Depression of the 1930s would have been a brief disaster if it hadn't been for the national tragedy of the New Deal. Jim Powell has proven this."_ P.J. O'Rourke, author of Parliament of Whores and Eat the Rich

"The material laid out in this book desperately needs to be available to a much wider audience than the ranks of professional economists and economic historians, if policy confusion similar to the New Deal is to be avoided in the future."_ James M. Buchanan, Nobel Laureate, George Mason University

"I found Jim Powell's book fascinating. I think he has written an important story, one that definitely needs telling."_ Thomas Fleming, author of The New Dealers' War

"Jim Powell is one tough-minded historian, willing to let the chips fall where they may. That's a rare quality these days, hence more valuable than ever. He lets the history do the talking."_ David Landes, Professor of History Emeritus, Harvard University

"Jim Powell draws together voluminous economic research on the effects of all of Roosevelt's major policies. Along the way, Powell gives fascinating thumbnail sketches of the major players. The result is a devastating indictment, compellingly told. Those who think that government intervention helped get the U.S. economy out of the depression should read this book."_ David R. Henderson, editor of The Fortune Encyclopedia of Economics and author of The Joy of FreedomThe Great Depression and the New Deal.

For generations, the collective American consciousness has believed that the former ruined the country and the latter saved it. Endless praise has been heaped upon President Franklin Delano Roosevelt for masterfully reining in the Depression's destructive effects and propping up the country on his New Deal platform. In fact, FDR has achieved mythical status in American history and is considered to be, along with Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln, one of the greatest presidents of all time. But would the Great Depression have been so catastrophic had the New Deal never been implemented?

In FDR's Folly, historian Jim Powell argues that it was in fact the New Deal itself, with its shortsighted programs, that deepened the Great Depression, swelled the federal government, and prevented the country from turning around quickly. You'll discover in alarming detail how FDR's federal programs hurt America more than helped it, with effects we still feel today, including:

This groundbreaking book pulls back the shroud of awe and the cloak of time enveloping FDR to prove convincingly how flawed his economic policies actually were, despite his good intentions and the astounding intellect of his circle of advisers. In today's turbulent domestic and global environment, eerily similar to that of the 1930s, it's more important than ever before to uncover and understand the truth of our history, lest we be doomed to repeat it.

A common historical misconception is that FDR's New Deal rescued the United States from the Great Depression. However, CATO Historian Jim Powell argues that the New Deal exacerbated and elongated the Great Depression. With impressive attention to detail, Powell examines the long-term results of the New Deal and persuasively argues that they crippled the U.S. economy.

In this detailed book, you will learn about the numerous programs the FDR administration brought about, including the following:

* Programs that inundated private businesses with unprecedented waves of regulations, such as the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, the National Recovery Act and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

* Programs that redistributed wealth from producers to consumers, such as the Federal Emergency Relief Act and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation.

* Programs that nationalized industries, centrally planned infrastructure or created makework projects to increase employment such as the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Public Works Administration and the Tennessee Valley Authority. Powell argues that these programs typically led to poorly planned infrastructure that was more expensive than what could have been acquired in a free market.

The economic results of FDR's programs were devastating. For example, consider the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA). The price and production controls of the AAA led to perverse practices such as millions of tons of domestic oat and corn being burned while the U.S. simultaneously imported oat and corn, millions of peaches being left to rot and millions of "excess" pigs being needlessly slaughtered while lard was being imported from overseas. The extent of economic regulation under the FDR Administration reached such absurd levels, there was even a government board organized solely to control the production and pricing of milk!

This book will also detail the oppressive controls on income and wages under the FDR administration. Under FDR, scores of private sector jobs were eliminated through minimum wage laws, personal income taxes hit 91% for certain brackets and it was a stated part of FDR's platform that nobody should have an annual income in excess of $25,000.

Powell reveals how all of FDR's programs are based upon the fatally flawed premises of Keynesian economics, including the following:

* That government spending is always good for the economy, even if it is engaging in pointless ventures such as building pyramids.

* Gold (as a standard of currency) is a "barbarous relic" that prevents economic growth.

* A capitalist economy will inevitably slow to a halt without periodic bolsters from centralized planning.

* Consumption (i.e., the destruction of wealth) not production, drives the economy. Thus, government should redistribute wealth from those who would invest it to those who would spend it.

From reading this book, you will also learn that many of FDR's earliest programs, such as the AAA and the National Recovery Act, were originally ruled as unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. Unfortunately FDR stayed in office long enough to appoint 7 of the 9 sitting supreme court justices, which eventually opened the floodgates for New Deal reforms. Thus, is the unforeseen danger of having a President serve more than two terms.

Powell has done a fantastic job with this work. I am not surprised that FDR's Folly has been enthusiastically recommended by famed free market economists such as Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in free market capitalism and learning the real history of the Great Depression.

It's good to get this out. The hero worship of FDR is very wrong.
He did immense damage to our nation, and delivered socialism to it's cradle.

Yet the Democrats still idolize the 'New Deal', and Obama has mentioned more than once that he is following RDF's leadership in our current economic crisis. Even Wall Street types were perfectly willing to give FDR dictatorial powers if Obama would cope with the financial crisis.

Hillary Clinton, speaking at a luncheon for the Eleanor Roosevelt Legacy Fund, says the former first lady's words give her courage on the campaign trail.

"NEWS BRIEF: "At A Difficult Time, First Lady Reaches Out, Looks Within", by Bob Woodward, Washington Post Staff Writer, The Washington Post, Sunday, June 23, 1996, p. A1, 20."

popular self-help writers to Camp David to help them dissect what had happened in the first two years of the presidency and to search for a way back after the Democrat's devastating loss to the Republicans in the 1994 congressional elections. They met the weekend beginning Friday, Dec. 30, 1994."

" Three of the attendees were well-known: Anthony Robbins, author of 'Awaken The Giant Within'; Marianne Williamson, author of 'A Return To Love'; and Stephen R. Covey, author of 'The Seven Habits of Highly Successful Effective People' . Their names later leaked out publicly and all three declined to discuss the substance of the meeting. The identities of the two others did not leak, and they were the ones who played a significant role over the weekend and the year that followed."

When Hillary 'Channeled' Eleanor Roosevelt

"In 1994, reeling from the Democrats' defeat in congressional elections, Hillary Clinton, that otherwise apparently sane woman, invited five professional feelgooders to spend the weekend with her and Bill. They included Stephen Covey, author of the Seven Habits of Highly Succ essful People and Jean Houston, a self-styled "sacred psychologist".

As the weekend wore on, it was increasingly dominated by Hillary's own problems.

Houston, who felt that "being Hillary Clinton was like being Mozart with his hands cut off", informed the First Lady that she was "carrying the burden of 5,000 years of history when women were subservient . . . probably more than virtually any woman in human history - apart from Joan of Arc".

Houston and the latter-day Joan conducted seances in which they consulted Clinton's `spiritual archetypes', Eleanor Roosevelt and Mahatma Gandhi. "

**shocking**

you mean that government social programs helped democrats stay in power?? go figure.

and yes... the social program is the keystone to democrat power. they have a vested interest in getting people into social programs (as a vast majority of people that have used a social program will continue to vote democrat)

meanwhile, realizing this, the GOP has a vested interest to keep people OUT OF social programs.

don’t think so? imagine what circumstance gets you into social programs. divorce is a good one... broken homes yield single moms and kids from broken homes that have a difficult time getting a proper education (due to instability in the home). how do dems promote divorce? glamorizing infidelity via the media

what else do they glamorize? drug use. crime. rampant tattoos and piercings. studious kids are ‘nerds’... hoping to limit the educational achievement of kids. even abortion, which goes hand in hand with the sexual attitudes promoted by the left.

the end result? trip up kids from 7th or 8th grade on... and you will yield more democrat voters going into the next generation. of course, being messed up... the odds are good that their kids will end up problematic... and will need the social programs.

QED

**shocking**
you mean that government social programs helped democrats stay in power?? go figure.

meanwhile, realizing this, the GOP has a vested interest to keep people OUT OF social programs.

don't think so? imagine what circumstance gets you into social programs. divorce is a good one... broken homes yield single moms and kids from broken homes that have a difficult time getting a proper education (due to instability in the home). how do dems promote divorce? glamorizing infidelity via the media

what else do they glamorize? drug use. crime. rampant tattoos and piercings. studious kids are 'nerds'... hoping to limit the educational achievement of kids. even abortion, which goes hand in hand with the sexual attitudes promoted by the left.

English economist John Maynard Keynes sought both to explain why depressions occurred and what might be done to prevent them. Simply put, he thought government should use its massive financial power (taxing and spending) as a sort of ballast to stabilize the economy. Depressions, then, should be attacked with increased government spending at the bottom of the income pyramid. This position is the opposite of "trickle down." Keynesian economists call this "counter-cyclical demand management," believing that the government's massive financial impact can be used as a counterweight to current market forces.

"While today's economic slowdown pales in comparison to the Great Depression, when it comes to political action, the ghost of the 1930s may still be haunting Washington, D.C. President Franklin Roosevelt explained the need for the New Deal this way in his 1932 address to the Democratic National Convention: "While [Republicans] prate of economic laws, men and women are starving. We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings."

That's not so different from the sentiment behind modern-day calls for action, like Rep. Barney Frank's plan to bail out homeowners. When the market takes a wrong turn, it's the job of government to grab the wheel-by boosting spending or cutting taxes-and steer the economy back on the right path.

But if there's anything more unpredictable than the direction of the market, it's the effects of government tinkering with economic policy. And even today, economists and historians still vigorously debate not only whether or not the New Deal helped take the country out of the Depression but if it actually made things worse." ~ Did the New Deal Work?, By Matthew Bandyk, Posted April 11, 2008

very simply, he’s wrong. sending $1000 to the poorest people in the country will not create new businesses, or wealth generators. with the offshoring of manufacturing and production while onshoring/importing the resultant goods... the US is being drained of its equity.

sending $1000 to 200m people will only be spent on low quality goods desired/afforded by these people. those same goods are the ones being sold by the offshore corporations. very little of the $1000 will remain within the US.

if you wish to improve the economic conditions of the country, there are 2 things you can do that will solve the problem.

1. put tariffs on imported goods that would allow domestically produced goods the ability to compete against the foreign products.

2. reduce taxes, corporate, capital, and income, to attract more money back into the country. as a small business owner, 50% or more is just not worth it compared to other countries where the tax rate is 10-18%.

by doing this... the government would not have to push any monies to the people. the reduced taxes would be enough. (note the spike in the market after the Bush tax cuts... and that was only 5%)

of course, the dems will never do this as it would be counter to their goal of obtaining power at all costs. (yes, even the well being of American citizens)

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