BeAChooser
Banned
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2007
- Messages
- 11,716
LOL! I can only infer that you are one of the millions of gullible democrats who hang on every word coming out of that partisan, moron named Rachel Maddow.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/jack-c...l-maddow-still-cant-get-it-right-about-hoover
The problem is that Hoover didn't freeze spending. Either Maddow's a fool or a liar. Here, from the same source:
Since in previous debates with you, I told you that Hoover significantly increased government spending, one suspects you of now lying. I told you previously that Herbert Hoover started a trade war, increased government spending substantially and raised tax rates across the board. In fact, he increased the top rate on personal income taxes from 25% to 63%. He doubled estate taxes. And he raised corporate taxes by nearly 15%. And in doing so, he probably turned what would have been a recession into a 10 or 11 year depression. Why did you ignore all that?
And this too contains statements that you were previously shown were untrue.
The unemployment rate was indeed 25% immediately after FDR took office, but the unemployment rate did not drop to 9% as you now claim (you previously claimed it dropped to 10%). It fact, it went down to only about 14% in June of 1937 (http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1528.html ), and then proceeded to go back up to almost 19% by 1938. It was still over 17% in 1939, despite FDR doubling government spending again. Only the onset of WW2 and the enormous growth in demand for war goods finally brought it below 10% (in 1941).
And the timing of the rate dropping from 25% to 14% probably has more to do with the Supreme Court striking down key elements of the New Deal legislation (including the National Industrial Recovery Act in July 1935 and the Agricultural Adjustment Act in July 1935 and January 1936) than FDR's prolifigate spending.
Furthermore, the timing of it then going back up to 19% probably was the result of FDR, in 1936 and early 1937, packing the court with his own people, leading to reversals of the earlier Supreme Court decisions mentioned above in the spring of 1937. And immediately after that, the Dow collapsed and the unemployment rate shot back up to 19%.
All of these facts have been posted to you previously but you apparently just want to ignore them or lie. Readers will have to decide which you are doing.
Now let's look at the stock market and what it did. Again, much of this is material that was already posted on threads you were on where this issue was discussed, so it's hard to believe you aren't aware of it.
The 1929 collapse started in September with the market dropping from a high of about 381 to about 320 (a 17% decline) over a month's time. Then on Black Thurday, the panic began. By the end of October the market was at about 230 followed by a short recovery to about 290. Then as Hoover began to intervene, the Dow began to drop again … and drop and drop ... to a low of about 42 ( http://stockcharts.com/charts/historical/djia1900.html ). Then, in the month's leading up to the 1932 election, the Dow began to climb ... back up to about a 100. Obviously, that wasn't because of FDR's "New Deal" policies since they hadn't been implimented yet. The timing might suggest that folks just thought someone new in the Whitehouse would be a good thing (much like many people foolishly thought Obama in the Whitehouse might be a good thing). So the market responded. In any case, when FDR took office, the Dow stood at about 100.
In his first 100 days (like Obama), FDR instituted his New Deal. I suggest that then even more optimism took the Dow to about 150, where it stalled as the effects of that New Deal spending actually began to be felt in the economy (much like is happening now). There really is no other explanation. The Dow remained about 150 for the next 2 years. In other words, all that spending that was occurring during that time was again having no effect.
When the economy collapsed again in 1937 (again, the courts reinstated elements of the New Deal), the Dow collapsed back to 100. Yes, it did soon climb back up to 150 ... but it never got any higher. Seven years after FDR began the New Deal, despite massive increases in government spending (in terms of GDP/GNP) that are certainly comparable to what Obama has enacted now, the Dow was still less than half the pre-1929 value. Given the fact that in numerous other recessions and depressions where government didn't increase spending to that extent and even reduced it, the Dow was breaking new highs within 7 years time, a rational person would have to call Roosevelt's spending approach a total fail.
And as I mentioned to you in previous threads, FDR's Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, agreed. Eight years after the start of the New Deal, he wrote the following: "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. ... I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started .... and an enormous debt to boot!". Why would you not believe him, lomiller? Because this was a democrat trying to be honest?
The New Deal not only didn't significantly help but it negatively affected employment in various ways. According to economists Vedder and Gallaway in a 1997 study (http://hnn.us/articles/3800.html ) titled "Out of Work: Unemployment and Government in Twentieth-Century America", "New Deal policies (and some Hoover-era policies predating the New Deal) systematically used the power of the state to intervene in labor markets in a manner to raise wages and labor costs, prolonging the misery of the Great Depression". They estimated that by 1940, unemployment was 8 percentage points higher "than it would have been in the absence of the higher payroll costs imposed by New Deal policies".
And let's add another name that you've ignored previously. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. is an acclaimed New Deal historian and widely seen as an admirer of FDR. Yet, in his book "The National Experience" (from 1963), he wrote "Though the policies of the Hundred Days had ended despair, they had not produced recovery." If Schlesinger could see it, why are so many liberals still regurgitating the myth that FDR's policies led to recovery?
Another assessment of the New Deal came from a left-leaning source, the Brookings Institute. They published a 900 page report on the impact of the New Deal's National Recovery Administration and concluded that "on the whole it retarded recovery." Why wouldn't you believe a left-leaning think tank?
So stop trying to change history with a pack of lies, lomiller. Instead, just ask yourself how did the economy finally recover? It's not only that war intervened, but FDR's reaction to the second collapse in September of 1937 was entirely different than the first. He didn't massively increase spending the second time around. In fact, spending stayed about the same and he even cut corporate taxes a little. And lo and behold, things started to improve ... although, admittedly, it took WWII to finally seal the deal and undo all the damage he and Hoover had done to the economy. When will you liberals learn?
Let me give you one final historical example. Calvin Coolidge (who wisely said "Four-fifths of all our troubles would disappear, if we would only sit down and keep still") was a fine President and there's a lesson in his story. He was Vice President under Warren Harding and took over when Harding died. Harding sort of left a mess (remember Teapot Dome), which Coolidge cleaned up. But Coolidge's biggest legacy is that during his time in office, he enacted a series of tax cuts and sharply restrained government spending. And as a result, between 1922 and 1929, the country experienced amazing prosperity. Real GNP grew at nearly 5% a year and unemployment fell from about 7% to 3%. And that happened despite the fact that in 1922 there was a sharp recession/depression (unemployment reached nearly 12%) and there was a 14 month long recession that began in 1926. All that Hoover did by overreacting to what would probably been a relatively brief correction in the economy was undo that prosperity. Sure, there might still have been a deep recession (or even a depression) but, if the history of our economy before that time is any guide, it probably would have been completely over in six years with the economy once again growing rapidly.
So here's my advice, lomiller. Either stop pretending you know the economic history of the US or stop lying about history. Because which ever happens to be the case, you will only end up further embarrassing yourself.
