| HappySqurriel said: If you look at how much money Hoover spent on public works, and FDR spent on the New Deal, and consider that the unemployment rate still averaged 18% over most of FDRs terms, it should have been clear that throwing money at an economic downturn doesn't correct it ... |
Ironically, the unemployment rate jumped severely when FDR cut back on spending and tried to balance the budget around 1935-7. Many economists think that FDR didn't spend enough, which is why the economy slipped back into a recession into 1937-8.
You just love to pick and choose the facts that help you, don't you?
And do you honestly believe that if Hoover had done something to shore up the banks that as many of them would have failed as did? Public works isn't the only element of a Keynsian style economic recovery. Not that many banks actually failed before 1930. The majority of them that did fail failed after 1930, when it was already extremely clear that the economy was about to hit the skids. About 744 failed from 1929 to the end of 1930. Over 9,000 failed after that. Just sitting around and twittling his thumbs led the market into a panic.
You are also assuming that it is just as easy to fix a problem as it is to prevent a problem. That's like comparing someone who has a minor wound and chooses not to get it treated compared to that same person down the road who has a massive infection because they didn't get it treated. Its much easier to solve a problem before it spirals out of control than once it has spiralled out of control. Its like fixing a drug problem early versus bottoming out and having to go into rehab. Rehab costs a hell of a lot more financially and emotionally than if you intervene early and fix the problem.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
