Obama might be the dumbest president we have ever had.

[Jackson50]

Avinash_Tyagi said:

Senlis said:The point is that if FDR had left the economy alone when he came to office, the Great Depression would have ended a lot sooner.  Instead, he expanded on Hoover's legislature with his "New Deal" and prolonged it.  Economists know that during a recession (or depression), there is a certain cycle of going low and then rising back up the businesses have to do before the recession/depression ends.  Government interventions slow that cycle down.

No actually the Depression wouldn't have ended sooner, I think you're forgetting that the Unemployment rate in 1932 was over 23%, that wasn't going to drop on its own, when the nation is that far below its full capacity, and in a consumer based society, you won't have a recovery from almost 1/4 unemployment on its own.  It took the larget war in human hisoty to put us back to full capacity

Yeah, the Depression would have ended sooner. Had Hoover and Roosevelt not artifically inflated wages, and had Roosevelt not exempted companies from antitrust legislation and thereby allow them to collusively raise prices, the Depression would have ended sooner.