Did FDR End the Depression? The economy took off after the postwar Congress cut taxes

WSJ ^ | 4/12/2010 | BURTON FOLSOM JR. AND ANITA FOLSOM

[wmposh]

It's a myth. FDR did not get us out of the Great Depression—not during the 1930s, and only in a limited sense during World War II.

Let's start with the New Deal. Its various alphabet-soup agencies—the WPA, AAA, NRA and even the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority)—failed to create sustainable jobs. In May 1939, U.S. unemployment still exceeded 20%. European countries, according to a League of Nations survey, averaged only about 12% in 1938. The New Deal, by forcing taxes up and discouraging entrepreneurs from investing, probably did more harm than good.

[dfwgator]

What got us out of the depression was rebuilding war-torn Europe after the war.

[Touch Not the Cat]

.
If anything, FDR prolonged the Depression.

[Admin Moderator]

To prevent duplication, please do not alter the published headline. Thanks.

[autumnraine]

Indeed. The manufacturing here also created innovation and new technology. Now the biggest thing America has is consumerism and a few elite who swap paper around to make millions.

[Secret Agent Man]

Europe and Japan.

[Dan(9698)]

It was ended when Congress repealed FDR’s socialist programs.

Now they are instituting even more socialistic stuff.

[dfwgator]

And the fact that China and Russia had very inefficient economic systems.

[windsorknot]

I am reading The Forgotten Man, and learning what a punk FDR really was.

[mbarker12474]

Employer-based health coverage is a product of this era, or the war era. Congress imposed wage controls. Clever businesses substituted benefits (like health insurance) for wages.

We suffer the expensive and complicated consequences of this regulation today.

[Tarpon]

Yes, FDR died, so yes he ended the depression.

[Don Corleone]

Wilson, Hoover and Roosevelt did all they could to subvert the US economy. Obama is doing the same.

[cranked]

U.S. version of a dictator = FDR...and he did not end the depression, he prolonged it....just like this Jack Squat administration is doing.

[American72]

Yep, great book. Also if you get a chance read The Great Depression: A Diary by Benjamin Roth . Very enlightening. He spoke as a true professional man during the depression who saw NO benefits to FDRs programs and was alarmed at how the country was sinking into socialism during the 1930s. A great read.

[Paperdoll]

The American people proved their indomitable spirit as they united to win that war. I don’t think anyone over six years old was absent from that mighty effort. We fought the good war on foreign soil. Now we must fight it on our own soil! I know that we can do it! God be with us.

[dfwgator]

“Stand up, Frank!”

[Paperdoll]

There wasn’t much TV in FDR’s day.There were newsreels in theaters. He did appear in those.

[raygun]

My Dad was a patternmaker that worked in the Chevrolet modelshop for 40 years.

He said that when he first showed up at the GM Tech Center in 1965 he was stunned to see the very equipment that he trained on as an apprentice in Germany. He found out that America’s industrial might was upgraded with all of the salvageable Nazi war production machinery (both the productio line and engineering). In return Germany (and the rest of Europe) received all the latest bleeding-edge technology that was available at the time.

There was a huge tax incentive for American corporations to purchase war scrap for their production / manufacturing. As he put it, that equipment apparently was a major upgrade to what had been in use up to that time. And that equipment continued to be used until well into the 1980’s.