Free Republic

This is two videos put together in one, some of the audio is in foreign languages, so I can't tell you what the commentary is. The headline refers to the second video, but the first video is the interesting one. Soros is debating a "market fundamentalist"(his words, watch him say it) and the "fundamentalist" brings up the depression of 1920 and how it fixed itself, without government intervention. He doesn't even address at all money printing and the bubble it creates. At about the 4 minute mark. Soros does the usual progressive thing, and deflects to the great depression. He...

The Panic of 1920 started out as a contender for the greatest depression of all time, with a drop in prices and production during its first twelve months that dwarfed those of any other economic crash, and she piled on an unemployment rate that skyrocketed from invisible to 12% in a flash. Ignoring calls to do something, anything, to "help", Washington, DC simply allowed the economy to adjust wherever it chose to go. In tandem, Federal Reserve officials looked upon the rapid deflation in prices not with horror but with a declaration of its necessity. Yet, despite the lack of...

It is a cliché that if we do not study the past we are condemned to repeat it. Almost equally certain, however, is that if there are lessons to be learned from an historical episode, the political class will draw all the wrong ones – and often deliberately so. Far from viewing the past as a potential source of wisdom and insight, political regimes have a habit of employing history as an ideological weapon, to be distorted and manipulated in the service of present-day ambitions. That’s what Winston Churchill meant when he described the history of the Soviet Union as...

n this fascinating speech, economist Thomas Woods explains why you've never heard of the Depression of 1920. Because it was over within a year, as the government let it run its course. The first year of the 1920 Depression was worse than that of 1929. Conditions were horrible. Yet due to President Woodrow Wilson's stroke near the end of his term, very little was done by the government to stop the economic decline. By the summer of 1921, recovery was on the way. It's too bad we're scared into thinking that economic downturns automatically require bold government action. History shows...

Never heard of it? That's not surprising - it didn't last long. The 20's were roaring, not greatly depressing. Yet virtually none of the American population knows that the nation's economy actually took a worse hit in 1920 than it did at any point during the Great Depression. Federal spending was cut from $6.3 billion in 1920 to $5 billion in 1921 and $3.2 billion in 1922. Federal taxes fell from $6.6 billion in 1920 to $5.5 billion in 1921 and $4 billion in 1922. Harding's policies started a trend. The low point for federal taxes was reached in 1924;...