tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3098264341625381422.post961442777265581575..comments2024-03-18T17:01:07.165-07:00Comments on The Provocateur: Examining FDR's Economic Recordmike volpehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02999118519606254362noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3098264341625381422.post-85506258321959379562008-11-26T22:00:00.000-08:002008-11-26T22:00:00.000-08:00First of all, low taxes for the wealthy have nothi...First of all, low taxes for the wealthy have nothing to do with the current crisis, and they got us out of what could have and should have been a much longer recession at the beginning of his term.<BR/><BR/>Second of all, whatever he is or isn't credited for, it is largely unearned regarding the economy. He has been lionized but as far as his economic performance it is largely undeserved. We were still in the Depression when WWII hit, so what exactly is he getting credit for.mike volpehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02999118519606254362noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3098264341625381422.post-56583817754338633672008-11-26T20:12:00.000-08:002008-11-26T20:12:00.000-08:00The common consensus is FDR brought the U.S. out o...The common consensus is FDR brought the U.S. out of the great depression. He is widely regarded as one of the great U.S. presidents. It is a vindication of Keynesianism economics. <BR/><BR/>Your interpretation is nothing but conservative revisionism.<BR/><BR/>The low taxes for the rich economic strategy has been in place by Bush for the last 8 years. Tell me, how is the economy dong right now???<BR/><BR/>Your approach doesn't work for a number of reasons. Essentially the wealth doesn't "trickle-down". Companies outsource labor and invest overseas. The rich get richer, the middle class shrinks, and the poor get poorer. <BR/><BR/>This is the legacy of supply-side economics under Bush. A different approach is now needed.<BR/><BR/>[From another blog]<BR/><BR/>The economy has just about come to a standstill – not so much because credit markets are clogged as because there’s not enough demand in the economy to keep it going. Consumer spending has fallen off a cliff. Investment is drying up. And exports are dropping because the recession has now spread around the world.<BR/><BR/>So are we about to return to Keynesianism? Hopefully. Government is the spender of last resort, which means the new Obama administration should probably be considering a stimulus package in the range of $600 billion, roughly 4 percent of national product -- focused on building and repairing the nation’s crumbling infrastructure, providing help to states to maintain services, and investing in new green technologies in order to wean the nation off oil.<BR/><BR/>But between now and late January, when the stimulus package will be voted on, we're likely to be treated to a great debate over the wisdom of Keynesianism. Fiscal hawks will claim government is already spending way too much. Even without the stimulus package, next year's budget deficit is likely to be in the range of $1.5 trillion, considering the shrinking economy and what’s being spent bailing out Wall Street. The hawks also worry that post-war baby boomers are only a few years away from retirement, meaning that the costs of Social Security and Medicare will balloon.<BR/><BR/>What the hawks don’t get is what John Maynard Keynes understood: when the economy has as much underutilized capacity as we have now, and are likely to have more of in 2009 and 2010 (in all likelihood, over 8 percent of our workforce unemployed, 13 percent underemployed, millions of houses empty, factories idled, and office space unused), government spending that pushes the economy to fuller capacity will of itself shrink future deficits.<BR/><BR/>Conservative supply-siders, meanwhile, will call for income-tax cuts rather than government spending, claiming that people with more money in their pockets will get the economy moving again more readily than can government. They're wrong, too. Income-tax cuts go mainly to upper-income people, and they tend to save rather than spend.<BR/><BR/>Even if a rebate could be fashioned for the middle class, it wouldn't do much good because, as we saw from the last set of rebate checks, people tend to use extra cash to pay off debts rather than buy goods and services. Besides, individual purchases wouldn't generate nearly as many American jobs as government spending on infrastructure, social services, and green technologies, because so much of we as individuals buy comes from abroad.<BR/><BR/>So the government has to spend big time. The real challenge will be for government to spend it wisely -- avoiding special-interest pleadings and pork projects such as bridges to nowhere. We’ll need a true capital budget that lays out the nation’s priorities rather than the priorities of powerful Washington lobbies. How exactly to achieve this? That's the debate we should be having between now and January 20 or 21st.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3098264341625381422.post-69987049252289492582008-11-26T14:23:00.000-08:002008-11-26T14:23:00.000-08:00Let's set the record straight here. First, FDR cam...Let's set the record straight here. First, FDR came into office with 25% unemployment. He inherited a Depression. The correction turned into a depression because Hoover raised taxes and Smoot/Hawley cut off free trade, both Republican policies. <BR/><BR/>I agree that FDR's policies prolonged the Depression far longer than it needed to be. That said, he wasn't inept. He lead America through WWII. He alligned with Stalin against Hitler. That was one of the greatest foreign policy coups of all time.mike volpehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02999118519606254362noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3098264341625381422.post-22897592708142248002008-11-26T13:36:00.000-08:002008-11-26T13:36:00.000-08:00FDR was the architect of the Great Depression. He ...FDR was the architect of the Great Depression. He was absolutely clueless in the area of economics and he is the reason that a correction, or slight downturn in the economy was prolonged and made into a depression.<BR/><BR/>Adolf Hitler solved the depression. Roosevelt was saved by the actions of a madman. His kool-aid drinkers have lionized him for 'curing' the depression... one that lasted for the duration of his inept Presidency.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com