Posted on 04/09/2025 12:25:21 PM PDT by ChicagoConservative27
For decades, the use of tariffs was considered a smart economic move to protect American entrepreneurship and markets for domestic producers.
They were in place as America surpassed Great Britain in the late 1800s and early 1900s as the preeminent nation and economy in the world.
They were in place during the Roaring Twenties -- first by the Emergency Tariff Act of 1920 and then the Fordney-McCumber Act of 1931.
So why are they frowned upon now, especially by conservative economists?
Five words: The Smoot-Hawley Tariffs Act.
The tariffs applied from Smoot-Hawley are erroneously credited with prolonging the market meltdown and economic damage from the 1929 crash and turning it into the Great Depression.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxbusiness.com ...
The Great Depression was caused by the Fed taking money out of circulation, not tariffs.
I wonder what Charles looked like as a kid.
If I want no political nonsense economic discussion, I look to Charles.
And for wardrobe ideas ;-)
What would happen if we listened to some Senators from Oregon and Utah again?
A few weeks ago, it could have been Mittens and Why-den.
Imagine . . .
Love Charles.
His life story is interesting.
Charles is the smartest guy in every room.
Bkmk
And panic by margin stock holders
Super margin accounts by todays standards
Friedman & Schwartz blame the Depression on a cascading collapse of American banks that began with a run on The Bank of the United States in 1930. That was a private sector NYC bank despite its impressive name.
They don’t connect the collapse to the 1929 Crash or to Smoot Hawley.
They don’t say that the Fed caused it, but they do fault the 1930s Fed for failing to do something that could have halted the domino effect of failing banks pulling down others.
They recommended that the Fed should have bought illiquid loans from banks being hit with runs so that panicking customers could pull out their cash. Instead the Fed did nothing. And the lack of an FDIC meant that bank depositors got wiped out.
Bernanke was a student of Friedman and implemented some of this in 2008. That’s what TARP and QE were about, to prevent a collapse of the banking system.
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