Posted on 02/16/2009 5:12:51 AM PST by bogeybob
Frum sometimes talks sense about Canadian politics (he is a Canadian). He makes no sense on US politics.
If only he had not been run out, then no one would know who Barack Obama even is.
I would really like a source on that claim. Given that there were only 122 million people in the U.S. (1930 census), a claim that 6-to-12% of the population died of starvation in a mere three years (1930-32) seems a wee bit excessive...
So excessive that it would’ve been considered one of the worst catastrophes in the history of the United States (and it again ignores the fact that the Depression was exacerbated by FDR’s policies well beyond anything Hoover was responsible for).
They just need to live under liberal totalitarianism for a bit so they can realize it is not fun.
Read up on some history...Roosevelt did not worsen the depression-revisionist history. Unemployment improved despite the fact that figures for that time do not show the government employment programs such as ccc and other programs...33 was the worst year...Roosevelt became president in March of 33...google it...look at any graph. In fact the only time unemployment went up during the 30’s was when Roosevelt cut spending in 36 and balanced the budget...caused a spike in unemployment...but didn’t reach the levels of 33. Why do you think Roosevelt got elected four times if Hoover was so much better?...then there is the little matter of Hoover ordering the Army to fire upon former US soldiers who had come to Washington for the bonus money in 32...Patton and McArthur as was Eisenhower were involved...Read about it if you don’t believe me (bonus march).
Back in the 1960’s there were still a good number of conservative Dems in the Senate.
I’m sorry, but we REALLY don’t see eye to eye on this. FDR didn’t resolve the Depression by his policies. He exacerbated and proliferated it well beyond Hoover. By all accounts, some historians and economists concluded it took until Eisenhower to resolve aspects of it. Hoover had a bad situation, FDR made it worse and created generations of government dependency and programs that have grown to obscene proportions that will bankrupt us (now to be outdone by the False Messiah). Take away WW2, and FDR was one of our worst Presidents, bar none. He was no savior, and was the architect of the modern welfare state.
I didn’t say he resolved it...it took time just as this one will, but he kept people alive...The American people were so traumatized by Hoover’s actions or non actions that they did not elect a Repub for president for 20 years.
Let me think: A party going for a third straight presidential win, where the incumbent president has sustained disapproval, AND a financial panic the likes of which had not been seen since 1987 if not 1907 AND the evaporation of at least 4 trillion dollars in paper wealth in the months leading up to the election.
That party's candidate will lose every time. If we weren't so polarized as a nation, our party would have lost by more.
Hoover's not-actions? He was incredibly activist. Read "The Forgotten Man" by Amity Schlaes.
I’m sorry, but I just reject your characterizations. Hoover a mass-murderer, FDR kept people alive ? I mean WTF ? He was a POLITICIAN for heaven’s sake. Domestically, FDR was the worst f**king disaster to hit this country... with only LBJ’s expansion of his policies and now the False Messiah. Best thing at the time at the start was to ride out the storm WITHOUT massive government intervention and had a little faith in capitalism and the resilience of our people. Look at the horrible precedent it set. The Founding Fathers and every responsible administration from then on never would’ve found that remotely acceptable. We had bad economic times before (hell, we had one in the 1890s), and we always bounced back. We STILL haven’t recovered from FDR’s mess and the disastrous course it set for the country. But Hoover was WORSE ? I’m sorry, but that is just beyond ludicrous.
I was actually surprised awhile ago when I found out how activist Hoover was (which, as you pointed out, FDR built upon). I rather wish Calvin Coolidge had run again in ‘28. He was the last great Conservative President we had (as good as Reagan was, he was never able to shrink the fed gov’t as it badly needed to be) and he’d have never embarked on an activist course. And as I said, we’ve never recovered from this big government obsession. We’d not have a fraction of the problems today had we just left things alone at the time. It’s funny when we all say today we don’t want a Socialist government. But we’ve HAD one for close to 80 years.
I have read the Forgotten Man...but look at Hoover’s actions...he did not send any help to the average American...he threw money at the banks and at business...his fed policies may have caused or at least exacerbated the depression also. He also raised tariffs which I think had a minor effect...but some disagree.
” Many of the wealthy, as well as others, joined the speculative stock market sending stock prices to greater and greater without regard to company performance; In October, 1929, the bubble burst. The crash meant the tremendous loss of capital as prices declined $74 billion from 1929 to 1932 and the repatriation of much of US investment abroad. The Germany economy collapsed followed by the British and french economies. Germany could not pay the reparations it owed to the victors of WWI or make debt payments to US lenders, setting off a chain reaction. The world entered an economic depression.
President Herbert Hoover did not know how to meet this crisis. His government began buying farm surpluses in order to prop up prices but it did not buy enough to make a difference. The Farm Board loaned money to farmers to establish cooperatives (a socialist measure) but the millions of farmers scattered across millions of miles had difficulty in cooperating. Farm income went from $8 billion in 1929 to $3 billion in 1933, a decline of 62.5%.
Republican wisdom said that high tariffs were good for the economy and, besides, in a time of world crisis countries tend to become very nationalistic, so the Congress passed, with Hoover’s acquiescence, the very high Hawley-Smoot Tariff in 1930. Raising the tariff made things worse because it meant that foreigners could sell less in the US and thus earn fewer US dollars with which to buy US goods or make payments on debts owed to US citizens. Exports fell 50%.
As historians Peter N. Carroll and David W. Noble note, Hoover feared that the collapse of the large corporations would bring down the entire US capitalist system. After all, one percent of the banks held 50% of banking assets. Three corporations—Ford, Chrysler, General Motors—manufactured 85% of the automobiles sold in the US. Chain stores dominated retail sales and their difficulties had national repercussions.
Business and industry met the crisis as they had always done—they cut production, lowered wages, reduced working hours, and fired workers. Unemployment rose from 1.5 million in 1929 to 13 million in 1933, a figure which represented 25% of the labor force. Even such a high percentage hid the dimensions of the problem because it did not what percentage had been forced the part-time work. Industrial wages fell from425 a week to $17 a week, a decline of 32%. By 1932, sawmill workers were only earning five to ten cents an hour; Tennessee female mill workers earned $2.39 for 50 hours work; and Connecticut women got between 60 cents to a dollar for a 55 hour week. To help the situation, the Hoover administration sept close to a billion dollars in public works programs but he would not go further. Nor would he argue for direct relief to the unemployed and starving because he feared that doing so would corrupt them. Although he had administered relief progress in Europe after the First World War, he saw that as only an emergency measure caused by war. He believed that doing a similar thing in the the US would become a permanent practice. To many, he was callous. As people lost their homes and created shanty towns, they derisively called the “Hoovervilles.” Hoover argued that private charities and state and local governments should be the institutions to provide relief. But they were suffering as well and could not deal with a problem of this magnitude.
Hoover and the Republicans saw aid to corporations as being different. Whereas they believed that helping the individual citizen weather the Depression would corrupt him or her, aiding corporations and other business was different. To many, it appeared that the Republicans were only interested in the rich. The newly-created Reconstruction Finance Corporation aided only the large corporations.
Hoover broke precedent because the national government assumed some responsibility for what happens during an economic depression but he was not willing to go far enough. He believed that the depression was part of the normal business cycle and had been caused by international factors and not US ones. to him, “prosperity was just around the corner.” The best thing for the country to do would be to wait the crisis out.”
Also, there was no so called safety net back then...imagine the suffering...it’s easy to see why it took 20 years for a GOP be elected president.
There was a more cohesive society in large part than there was today. You had the natural safety nets of family and community which only later were replaced by the government.
FDR held power for so long due to the War and also because people wanted the strong leader type. In that way we weren't all that different from the Germans and the Italians at that time.
You know, I think it’s a fair assumption that you’re still a liberal Democrat.
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