Great myths about the great depression [Thomas Sowell]

townhall.com ^ | October 9, 2003 | Thomas Sowell

[William Terrell]

There is a definition problem here since I tamper with the economy everytime I exchange money for anything.

I suppose you tamper with a car every time you drive it?

[KosmicKitty]

My dad, aged 94 with his mind still as sharp as when he was 24, very clearly remembers the great depression. His opinion of FDR - he calls him "the father of our national debt".

Dad's been a hardcore Republican all his life.

[logician2u]

Question to the forum...has anyone heard the author (Powell) on any talk radio shows?

I listen to lots of shows (Ingraham, Prager, Medved, Hewitt, etc.) and haven't heard (or missed) this writer or discussion of this book.

Surprise, surprise.

You think Hewitt (in particular) is going to have a libertarian on his program to badmouth the neocon hero FDR?

That'll be the day.

[logician2u]

The book is also available from Laissez-Faire Books, and for less than the Amazon price!

FDR'S FOLLY

[chuckles]

The constitutional reference would be the part where "CONGRESS" prints the money and "SETS THE VALUE THEREOF". This has always been the misunderstod buggaboo since the begining. I believe this was the cause of Hamilton and Burr's duel. The central bank is unconstitutional, but has almost always been there. The tinfoil hat people have argued this forever. There is a book about Jekel Island(sp?), or somesuch that explains it all. I don't see why Allen Greenspan should control the economy of the greatest super power, and thus the world, but try to imagine congress setting interest rates and the value of money. Barney Frank, Kennedy, the Vermont's "independant",Nancy Pelosi,et al.... the mind boggles.

Some believe Lincoln was killed, not because of a lone gunman from the south wanted revenge, but because he was the first president to try to pay for a war with "congressional money". The bankers were all set to finance both the North and the South, when Abe decided the rates were too high. So, he printed his own money called "Greenbacks". Thats where the term comes from. When he was killed, Johnson stopped the printing of the Greenbacks and borrowed the money like he was suposed to, from the central banks. Another was, Kennedy was printing money when he was shot, and Johnson stopped that toot sweet post mortem. A good, but tedious read about this is "The Unseen Hand, A conspiritorial hisory of the world." It gives the "Big Picture" of world history. One of the best reads in my library is a book written by a Democrat Rep from Ill. in 1940. He wittnessed the FDR debacle from congress and wrote about it. The book is "Smoke Screen" by Samuell B. Pettengill. He compares FDR with what went on in Hitler's Germany. He speaks of the "stacking of the courts" because FDR had to fight even his own party to get his radical ideas through. He compares the CCC,NRA, and all the other alphabet soup titles with the 3rd Reich. This has always been one of my quirks. When people talk of Hitler, they speak of "right wing" this and "conservative" that, when in fact, Hitler was a socialist. NAZI even means National Socialist party in english, but somehow that is missed by Democrats. Remember Volkswagon, the peoples car? Goverment takeovers of industrial production is not conservative, it is the 1st step in socialization. Maybe Ann Coulter will write about that someday and clear it all up. When I call Democrats socialists and communists, it's not hyperbole.

I'm not saying I believe everything I read, but there are many facets to history that are not discussed. A good comparison, I think, is of the "magician". He gets you to look at his left hand, while his right is in your pocket. The media, pundits, and talking heads, get you involved in one subject, while all the time, setting you up for the fall. I don't trust anybody.

[kittymyrib]

A few years ago, PBS had a biography about FDR in which it stated that his mother ran the show, even buying Franklin and Eleanor the house next to hers and connecting it with a breezeway to hers while they were in Europe on their honeymoon!
She never allowed him to keep a checkbook of the Roosevelt finances until she passed away at age 96, and he was already president. No wonder he had no clue as to how real people lived, worked, and managed their finances.

[Bernard Marx]

He was a son of privilege, yet he somehow built up this aura of a President and a Party that "cares about the little guy." Completely absurd, but people believed it!

They still do, incredibly! Despite the huge number of millionaires and billionaires who run the Democrat Party (Bill Gates, the Kennedys, the Rockefellers and George Soros as examples) they still somehow are viewed as "the party of the people." Horse whoopee. Old ideas die hard, especially with the complicit media.

[biblewonk]

Thanks for a very very interesting post. It deserves a better response than this but I can only say for now that I agree 100 percent about Hitler being a socialist. He wanted to empower the people against the evil wealthy people, the Jews and the profiteers. Anyone who would make a profit was hurting the state and therefore a traitor.

The money thing about Lincoln and Kennedy is very interesting. The thing about government is that all of the successful ones strive to strengthen the nation. There is no way to be a government who sits around on philosophical ideas while enemies are all around. A nation can not exist in this world without being strong economically and governments are all about self preservation. People who say the constitution doesn't allow the government to do such and such drive me nuts.

[George Frm Br00klyn Park]

biblewonk:
In reality, both presidents represented a major break with the past by casting the federal government in the role of rescuer of the economy in its distress.
To suggest that this is not a priority of the government is either stupidity or a lie. Ofcourse the Federal government should do what it can to help the economy.
-------------------

In "FDR's Folly," author Jim Powell spells out just what the Roosevelt administration did and what consequences followed. It tried to raise farm prices by destroying vast amounts of produce -- at a time when hunger was a serious problem in the United States. It imposed minimum wage rates that priced unskilled labor out of jobs, at a time of massive unemployment.
Behind both policies was the belief that what was needed was more purchasing power and that this could be achieved by government policies to raise the prices received by farmers and workers. But prices do not automatically translate into greater purchasing power, unless people buy as much at higher prices as they would at lower prices -- which they seldom do.
==========================================

Guys, Besides, Government is "so good" at controlling the economy to "help" the people. < / SARCASM > Peace and love, George.

[Huck]

FDRs role as wartime president steering us through those horribly uncertain and trying times is a myth too pervasive to give up, imo.

My inclination would be, strange as it may seem, to find a way to communicate these important economic truths while somehow preserving enough of the FDR myth to make people comfortable. It's the Dale Carnegie in me. If I had more time, I'd think up an example. But trying to totally shoot down the myth of FDR, imo, will be resisted for emotional reasons. Better to find a way to make those emotions work for us, even if it means fudging things a bit.

[LizardQueen]

They hated FDR so much that my mother relates a story that on the day he died, my grandmother danced down the street of her mostly-DemocRAT neighborhood, swigging a bottle of wine and shouting "hooray! That son of a bitch is dead!"

LOL! She sounds like quite a character.....

LQ

[mathluv]

And Hoover? Sounds like he might've been history's first recorded RINO!



Teddy might have been the first.

[mathluv]

I had heard about it prior to this thread - maybe on Rush???

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

This is no different than the DemonRats and the media going on and on about how the economy was so wonderful under Klinton and how he deserves every bit of the credit, but went into recession 5 minutes after Bush was elected and Bush deserves all blame.

The Hillary-lovers could stand a reality check here, too. Smartest woman in the world my cracked ass. If she's so brilliant and can think on her feet so well, why isn't she allowed to do real press conferences or interviews?