[x]

It'as not just economics that count. It's also psychology -- both the psychology of markets and the psychology of politics. Once a certain threshhold is passed, when inflation cuts monetary values enough or enough of the population is unemployed or enough financial assets have just disappeared, it's hard to put things back together again. That explains Hitler in Europe and -- without directly likening one to the other -- Roosevelt's New Deal over here. The expansive, irrationally exhuberant psychology of boom gives way to a morose, pessimistic bust psychology, accompanied by a reaction against markets and economic libertarianism. So while Hoover and FDR's policies did make things worse, it can't automatically assume that libertarian policies would have made everything right or could have been adopted.

[AdamSelene235]

So while Hoover and FDR's policies did make things worse, it can't automatically assume that libertarian policies would have made everything right or could have been adopted.

Its a bit like Christianity, a wonderful idea, but no one's ever tried it.