Yet Roosevelt's policy of massive intervention by the state to prop up wage rates and inflate credit gets a much better press than it ever deserved. Consider this: in September 1931 the US unemployment rate was 17.4 per cent and the Dow Jones industrial Average stood at 140. By January 1938, unemployment was still at 17.4 per cent, and the Dow Average had dropped to 121.
Weird. I always thought FDR's new deal fixed unemployment! Silly me.
7 comments:
That quote is stupid, because it fails to mention that the economy recovered substantively from 1932 to 1937. IT FAILS TO MENTION THE RECESSION OF 1937. It is dishonest.
So FDR's policies caused a second recession in 1937?
No, FDR's policies caused a increase in economic activity for 5 years straight, but because the market was such a mess, BECAUSE of the gold standard, there was a second recession. The FDR policies only went into full swing during war production. By the end of the war, they were fully institutionalized, and created the greatest ecnomic boom ever witnessed.
Ah, so really we shouldn't be blaming Bush for this mess, because for all we know, his policies could cause an economic book 10 years from now.
What, you didn't know policies are long-term?
The initial causes of the Great Depression caused the recession of 1937.
Unemployment was still very high (16%) in 1936, and there can be no real recovery unless people are producing.
The war caused a boom, and it could be said the military industrial complex has been in place since then giving millions of americans jobs off of government contracts in order to bomb other people over the past 80 years.
Agreed on your first point. But there was some recovery: the government put some people to work.
Yes, it could be said that they last 60s years have a boom only because of the MIC, but that would only be valid if you were ignorant enough to ignore the wealth created by the unionized workforce from 1940 to 1980.
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