[1rudeboy]

Check out the GDP for the period when Smoot-Hawley was in effect...in most years under Smoot....the GDP grew, especially later in the 1930s. The GDP is the real inidcator of overall economic growth.

Oops.

[Lou Budvis]

‘When goods don’t cross borders, armies will.’

[ConfusedSwede]

That graph looks pretty good 1rudeboy.

In my bookshelf I have some american books from 1990:s about the `squeeze of the middle class´. Some days ago I saw a video, at the reason.tv channel on youtube, about how rich the middle class in america really is.

Here is the video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvvuHREm5jg

This is really another discussion but I am not sure that free trade drives GDP growth.

Like a comment stated under the video, all the middle class toys are owned by someone else, the banks.

I am for free trade without regulation and tariffs, I am for free movement over borders (worker and goods), but on which terms do growth take place?

One can not build an economy on promises to produce in the future.

[_Jim]

A couple things first -

Your chart is highly compressed in and about the years in contest (Great Depression);

This can lead the drawing of the wrong assumptions when considering the legislation/acts of congress (and government in general) year by year.

For instance, the big DIP in GDP bottomed out in 1933 - htis is HARDLY visible on your chart!

Presenting data in this format essentially wipes out one’s ability to perform any meaningful analysis on the going by the fine-grained details of the day ... maybe that’s what the US Dept. of Commerce (souce of your charts?) would like ...

[_Jim]

The National Income Accounts for the Great Depression in the U.S. (1992 Prices)

Let's see if our friend the <PRE> tag will yield some tabular data:

                         GOVERN
            CON          MENT
            SUMP  INVEST PUR    EXPO IMPO NET
YEAR   GDP  TION   MENT  CHASES RTS  RTS  EXPORTS 
----  ----- -----  ----  -----  ---- ---- -----
1929  790.9 593.9  92.4  105.4  35.6 46.3 -10.7 
1930  719.7 562.1  59.8  116.2  29.4 40.3 -10.9 
1931  674.0 544.9  37.6  121.2  24.4 35.2 -10.8 
1932  584.3 496.1   9.9  117.1  19.1 29.2 -10.1 
1933  577.3 484.8  16.4  112.8  19.2 30.4 -11.2 
1934  641.1 519.0  31.5  127.3  21.4 31.1 -9.7 
1935  698.4 550.9  58.0  131.3  22.6 40.7 -18.1 
1936  790.0 606.9  75.5  152.5  23.7 40.2 -16.5 
1937  831.5 629.7  94.0  147.0  29.9 45.3 -15.4 
1938  801.2 619.5  61.3  157.8  29.6 35.2 -5.6 
1939  866.5 654.0  79.5  171.8  31.2 36.9 -5.7 
1940  941.2 688.0 111.3  174.2  35.4 37.8 -2.4 
1941 1101.8 737.1 137.3  288.0  36.4 46.5 -10.1 
1942 1308.9 719.7 72.1   692.0  23.9 42.2 -18.3