Frank Rich- the theatre critic? I'd be interested in what he thinks of Eddie Cantor, but as for the rest of the early '30's, not so sure.
Michael SmithFebruary 4, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Good letter, Professor. (Is that the appropriate way to address you?)
You might also mention Hoover's White House Conferences with business leaders wherein he urged them to maintain wages and increase/accelerate capital spending plans. Here is a fascinating 5-page article on the conferences from the December 2, 1929 issue of Time magazine: LINK
The history of the Hoover administration was re-written to cast him as a "laissez-faire" or "do nothing" President by the same history writers that cast Roosevelt as the savior who rescued us from the Depression.
A similar re-writing or distortion of history is being concocted even now as the left claims that our current economic problems are a result of Bush's "laissez-faire" "deregulation" of the economy. Of course, this claim is preposterous. No such “deregulation” took place — and our economy is far closer to fascism than it is to “laissez-faire” capitalism. But, barring some huge change in our culture, our children will be taught the left’s narrative of current events.
MethinksFebruary 4, 2009 at 2:10 pm
What? But wait! Barack swears There will be a "catastrophe" if the new new new stimulating stimulus is not passed. Isn't that what Bush said about TARP and the other stimulus? I'm beginning to think government doesn't have all the answers.
dg lesvicFebruary 4, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Here, again, a posting from below, which I am afraid has been lost in the shuffle, and bears repeating:
From America's Great Depresssion by Murray Rothbard, Pp 167, 168:
"Laissez-faire was, roughly, the traditional policy in American depressions before 1929. The laissez faire precedent was set in America's first great depression, 1819, when the federal government's only act was to ease terms of payment for its own land debtors. President Van Buren also set a staunch laissez-faire course in the Panic of 1837. Subsequent federal governments followed a similar path, the chief sinners being state governments which periodically permitted insolvent banks to continue in operation without paying their obligations. In the 1920-1921 depression, government intervened to a greater extent, but wage rates were permitted to fall, and government expenditures and taxes were reduced. And this depression was over in one year — in what Dr. Benjamin M. Anderson has called 'our last natural recovery to full employment.'"
Laissez faire, then, was the policy dictated both by sound theory and by historical precedent. But in 1929 the sound course was rudely brushed aside. Led by President Hoover, the government embarked on what Anderson has accurately called the 'Hoover New Deal.' For if we define 'New Deal' as an anti-depression program marked by extensive governmental economic planning and intervention — including bolstering of wage rates and prices, expansion of credit, propping up of weak firms, and increased government spending (e.g., subsidies to unemployment and public works) — Herbert Clark Hoover must be considered the founder of the New Deal in America. Hoover, from the very start of the depression, set his course unerringly toward the violation of all the laissez faire canons. As a consequence, he left office with the economy at the depths of an unprecedented depression, with no recovery in sight after three and a half years, and with unemployment at the terrible and unprecedented rate of 25 per cent of the labor force…Roosevelt, in large part, merely elaborated the policies laid down by his predecessor."
RandyFebruary 4, 2009 at 4:03 pm
Methinks,
"I'm beginning to think government doesn't have all the answers."
Oh, and he also raised taxes on corporations and on the rich.
Prior to the start of the Depression, Hoover's first Treasury Secretary, Andrew Mellon, had proposed, and saw enacted, numerous tax cuts, which cut the top income tax rate from 73% to 24%. When combined with the sharp decline in incomes during the early depression, the result was a serious deficit in the federal budget. Congress, desperate to increase federal revenue, enacted the Revenue Act of 1932. The Act increased taxes across the board, and the percentage increased with income, to near pre-1928 levels…to near pre-1928 levels…to near pre-1928 levels…to near pre-1928 levels…to near pre-1928 levels…to near pre-1928 levels…to near pre-1928 levels…to near pre-1928 levels…to near pre-1928 levels…to near pre-1928 levels…to near pre-1928 levels…to near pre-1928 levels…to near pre-1928 levels…to near pre-1928 levels…
So most of the things Don claims to have made the Depression worse occurred in the last year of Hoovers term. Also after 1932 is when the economic numbers stopped falling off the cliff and then leveled off and consistently improved under FDR.
Don, we can debate your economics positions but your history is with out a doubt inconsistent with the facts.
Acts of 1932 somehow effected the period from 1929 to to 1932??? Was there some time travel involved?
Taxes were massively cut before the crash and raised back up just prior to the start of the recovery. The facts are completely opposite of the claims you'd make for them.
Why did the Depression start after tax cuts and resolve after tax increases? The exact opposite occurred from what you guys claimed should have occurred. And now we are reliving the near exact same scenario and you guys are holding to your unsupportable positions.
None of this gives you guys pause???
dg lesvicFebruary 5, 2009 at 3:26 am
George Muir,
Which would you have rather gone through, the depression of 1920, 1921 or that of the thirties, the administrations of Harding and Coolidge or of Hoover and Roosevelt, of the more laissez fairist or more interventionist presidents?
BabinichFebruary 5, 2009 at 5:45 am
muirgeo 02-05-09 @ 1:33:59 AM
"Also after 1932 is when the economic numbers stopped falling off the cliff and then leveled off and consistently improved under FDR."
"What? But wait! Barack swears There will be a "catastrophe" if the new new new stimulating stimulus is not passed. Isn't that what Bush said about TARP and the other stimulus? I'm beginning to think government doesn't have all the answers."
The Tabula Rasa is playing on the fears of the people just like Al Gore does with Global Warming (now called Climate Change).
The POTUS knows nothing of what he's speaking about.
His ego has taken a hit. How is it someone so smart can be so stupid when it comes to personal appointments?
It's hard to conduct a witch hunt for robber barons when the very people you turn to for administration appointments lack ethics.
geoihFebruary 5, 2009 at 7:05 am
Quote from muirgeo: "Why did the Depression start after tax cuts and resolve after tax increases?"
That's all you got? You picked one fact and that was the whole reason for causing and ending the Great Depression? Are advocating a 73% income tax rate and everything will be fixed?
MethinksFebruary 5, 2009 at 8:41 am
Are advocating a 73% income tax rate and everything will be fixed?
In this fool's world correlation equals causation. You'll probably notice in his long and wrong diatribe, he fails to bring up a few facts – like the depression of 1938, among many other things. This is the same genius who thinks V.I. Lenin did the Russians a favour. Just don't bring your child to him for medical treatment and you should be alright. Logical arguments won't bear fruit because he lacks the intelligence to wrap his mind around logic.
Don BoudreauxFebruary 5, 2009 at 10:15 am
Muirgeo is not a careful reader. I do not claim (as he, in his above comment, presumes me to claim) that the Great Depression was sparked by Herbert Hoover's misguided maneuvers in the early 1930s. I say clearly in my letter that Hoover embarked on these policies IN RESPONSE TO the sharp economic downturn.
My immediate point, which I thought was obvious, is that Hoover was — contrary to potted history — no laissez faire president. He was quite active at intervening, just as are the current and immediate past occupants of the White House.
If anyone wants to draw further implications of my letter, the proper one is that Hoover's interventions did nothing to improve economic conditions and, arguably, were part of the reason the Great Depression lasted as long as it did.
vidyohsFebruary 5, 2009 at 10:47 am
Com'on Don!
That was funny.
No one here believes muirduck reads.
No one here believes muirduck understands.
No one here is ready to believe that muirduck has anything useful to say about markets or economics.
None of us can speak to his capabilities or performance as a doctor, and his expressions of idiocy on this blog just means that on the subjects you and Russ propose here he is simply replaying the recorded data of some very stupid professors and friends.
And, he does it to disrupt, with absolutely no intent to ever learn a thing.
We all know that.
Michael SmithFebruary 5, 2009 at 11:53 am
Don't forget that Hoover had the top tax rate increased from 25% to 63% — in 1930 if I recall correctly.
It will be argued that the top rate affected only a small portion of the population — and that is true. But it is a small portion of the population that creates and sustains employment. A tax on the rich is a tax on the very funds that account for a great deal of the investment necessary for economic growth and job creation.
MethinksFebruary 5, 2009 at 2:12 pm
My immediate point, which I thought was obvious,…
Don, your point was as obvious as the nose on your face. It was obvious to any halfwit reading it. It's just not obvious to Muirgeo. You must be accustomed to that by now.
Share
{ 17 comments }
Frank Rich- the theatre critic? I'd be interested in what he thinks of Eddie Cantor, but as for the rest of the early '30's, not so sure.
Good letter, Professor. (Is that the appropriate way to address you?)
You might also mention Hoover's White House Conferences with business leaders wherein he urged them to maintain wages and increase/accelerate capital spending plans. Here is a fascinating 5-page article on the conferences from the December 2, 1929 issue of Time magazine: LINK
The history of the Hoover administration was re-written to cast him as a "laissez-faire" or "do nothing" President by the same history writers that cast Roosevelt as the savior who rescued us from the Depression.
A similar re-writing or distortion of history is being concocted even now as the left claims that our current economic problems are a result of Bush's "laissez-faire" "deregulation" of the economy. Of course, this claim is preposterous. No such “deregulation” took place — and our economy is far closer to fascism than it is to “laissez-faire” capitalism. But, barring some huge change in our culture, our children will be taught the left’s narrative of current events.
What? But wait! Barack swears There will be a "catastrophe" if the new new new stimulating stimulus is not passed. Isn't that what Bush said about TARP and the other stimulus? I'm beginning to think government doesn't have all the answers.
Here, again, a posting from below, which I am afraid has been lost in the shuffle, and bears repeating:
From America's Great Depresssion by Murray Rothbard, Pp 167, 168:
"Laissez-faire was, roughly, the traditional policy in American depressions before 1929. The laissez faire precedent was set in America's first great depression, 1819, when the federal government's only act was to ease terms of payment for its own land debtors. President Van Buren also set a staunch laissez-faire course in the Panic of 1837. Subsequent federal governments followed a similar path, the chief sinners being state governments which periodically permitted insolvent banks to continue in operation without paying their obligations. In the 1920-1921 depression, government intervened to a greater extent, but wage rates were permitted to fall, and government expenditures and taxes were reduced. And this depression was over in one year — in what Dr. Benjamin M. Anderson has called 'our last natural recovery to full employment.'"
Laissez faire, then, was the policy dictated both by sound theory and by historical precedent. But in 1929 the sound course was rudely brushed aside. Led by President Hoover, the government embarked on what Anderson has accurately called the 'Hoover New Deal.' For if we define 'New Deal' as an anti-depression program marked by extensive governmental economic planning and intervention — including bolstering of wage rates and prices, expansion of credit, propping up of weak firms, and increased government spending (e.g., subsidies to unemployment and public works) — Herbert Clark Hoover must be considered the founder of the New Deal in America. Hoover, from the very start of the depression, set his course unerringly toward the violation of all the laissez faire canons. As a consequence, he left office with the economy at the depths of an unprecedented depression, with no recovery in sight after three and a half years, and with unemployment at the terrible and unprecedented rate of 25 per cent of the labor force…Roosevelt, in large part, merely elaborated the policies laid down by his predecessor."
Methinks,
"I'm beginning to think government doesn't have all the answers."
Not sure why, but that really cracked me up
Same idea:
$700 Billion Bailout Celebrated With Lavish $800 Billion Executive Party
Holman W. Jenkins 02-04-09
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123371119661046143.html
Smoot-Hawley
passed June 1930
Federal Home Loan Bank Act
Passed 1932
Reconstruction Finance Corporation
Passed 1932
Emergency Relief and Construction Act.
passed 1932
Oh, and he also raised taxes on corporations and on the rich.
Prior to the start of the Depression, Hoover's first Treasury Secretary, Andrew Mellon, had proposed, and saw enacted, numerous tax cuts, which cut the top income tax rate from 73% to 24%. When combined with the sharp decline in incomes during the early depression, the result was a serious deficit in the federal budget. Congress, desperate to increase federal revenue, enacted the Revenue Act of 1932. The Act increased taxes across the board, and the percentage increased with income, to near pre-1928 levels…to near pre-1928 levels…to near pre-1928 levels…to near pre-1928 levels…to near pre-1928 levels…to near pre-1928 levels…to near pre-1928 levels…to near pre-1928 levels…to near pre-1928 levels…to near pre-1928 levels…to near pre-1928 levels…to near pre-1928 levels…to near pre-1928 levels…to near pre-1928 levels…
So most of the things Don claims to have made the Depression worse occurred in the last year of Hoovers term. Also after 1932 is when the economic numbers stopped falling off the cliff and then leveled off and consistently improved under FDR.
Don, we can debate your economics positions but your history is with out a doubt inconsistent with the facts.
Acts of 1932 somehow effected the period from 1929 to to 1932??? Was there some time travel involved?
Taxes were massively cut before the crash and raised back up just prior to the start of the recovery. The facts are completely opposite of the claims you'd make for them.
Why did the Depression start after tax cuts and resolve after tax increases? The exact opposite occurred from what you guys claimed should have occurred. And now we are reliving the near exact same scenario and you guys are holding to your unsupportable positions.
None of this gives you guys pause???
George Muir,
Which would you have rather gone through, the depression of 1920, 1921 or that of the thirties, the administrations of Harding and Coolidge or of Hoover and Roosevelt, of the more laissez fairist or more interventionist presidents?
muirgeo 02-05-09 @ 1:33:59 AM
"Also after 1932 is when the economic numbers stopped falling off the cliff and then leveled off and consistently improved under FDR."
Wrong again…
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123353276749137485.html
Methinks 02-04-09 @ 2:10:13 PM
"What? But wait! Barack swears There will be a "catastrophe" if the new new new stimulating stimulus is not passed. Isn't that what Bush said about TARP and the other stimulus? I'm beginning to think government doesn't have all the answers."
The Tabula Rasa is playing on the fears of the people just like Al Gore does with Global Warming (now called Climate Change).
The POTUS knows nothing of what he's speaking about.
His ego has taken a hit. How is it someone so smart can be so stupid when it comes to personal appointments?
It's hard to conduct a witch hunt for robber barons when the very people you turn to for administration appointments lack ethics.
Quote from muirgeo: "Why did the Depression start after tax cuts and resolve after tax increases?"
That's all you got? You picked one fact and that was the whole reason for causing and ending the Great Depression? Are advocating a 73% income tax rate and everything will be fixed?
Are advocating a 73% income tax rate and everything will be fixed?
In this fool's world correlation equals causation. You'll probably notice in his long and wrong diatribe, he fails to bring up a few facts – like the depression of 1938, among many other things. This is the same genius who thinks V.I. Lenin did the Russians a favour. Just don't bring your child to him for medical treatment and you should be alright. Logical arguments won't bear fruit because he lacks the intelligence to wrap his mind around logic.
Muirgeo is not a careful reader. I do not claim (as he, in his above comment, presumes me to claim) that the Great Depression was sparked by Herbert Hoover's misguided maneuvers in the early 1930s. I say clearly in my letter that Hoover embarked on these policies IN RESPONSE TO the sharp economic downturn.
My immediate point, which I thought was obvious, is that Hoover was — contrary to potted history — no laissez faire president. He was quite active at intervening, just as are the current and immediate past occupants of the White House.
If anyone wants to draw further implications of my letter, the proper one is that Hoover's interventions did nothing to improve economic conditions and, arguably, were part of the reason the Great Depression lasted as long as it did.
Com'on Don!
That was funny.
No one here believes muirduck reads.
No one here believes muirduck understands.
No one here is ready to believe that muirduck has anything useful to say about markets or economics.
None of us can speak to his capabilities or performance as a doctor, and his expressions of idiocy on this blog just means that on the subjects you and Russ propose here he is simply replaying the recorded data of some very stupid professors and friends.
And, he does it to disrupt, with absolutely no intent to ever learn a thing.
We all know that.
Don't forget that Hoover had the top tax rate increased from 25% to 63% — in 1930 if I recall correctly.
It will be argued that the top rate affected only a small portion of the population — and that is true. But it is a small portion of the population that creates and sustains employment. A tax on the rich is a tax on the very funds that account for a great deal of the investment necessary for economic growth and job creation.
My immediate point, which I thought was obvious,…
Don, your point was as obvious as the nose on your face. It was obvious to any halfwit reading it. It's just not obvious to Muirgeo. You must be accustomed to that by now.