Rshermr
VIP Member
Cute how you're trying to change the discussion... which is about it being the "FDR Great Depression." Where did Bernake say that?No sane person (rules you out) blames FDR for the Great Depression which started some 3½ years before he even became president. Regardless, the unemployment rate dropped to under 10% in 1941 -- when government spending began skyrocketing in preparation of the war.It's the FDR Depression because he's the joker that made it last his first two whole terms.
What a shame you know so little.
WWII Started in 1939 with the invasion of Poland. The USA stood aside while Poland then the lowlands fell. Once France fell in 1940 (look it up if you don't know), it was obvious we could not sit aside much longer and men started joining the US military and we started moving to wartime footing
I'd bet on the box of rock against you in Rock, Paper and Scissors and give you 2-1 odds as well and still make a fortune
Do you consider Milton Friedman insane, Faun? He does in fact blame FDR for the longevity of the Great Depression.
The fact is most economists now believe that the Keynesian policies of FDR and the failure of the newly formed FED to respond to the banking crisis led to a worsening of the economic situation. For some reason that concept hasn't filtered down yet to the general public who know little about economics...you know...like Georgie?
MILTON? INSANE? Hardly, me boy. Milton was a respected economist once. He went out of favor as other economists determined that he was simply a supply side economist, supporting an economic theory which died out over the years with the help of the great Republican experiment of 1981. You know, me boy, when supply side economics was proven to be a hoax by Ronald Reagan, when he raised taxes and cut spending, just as Supply Side economics (aka reaganomics) called for, and watched in horror as the ue rate raised to the second highest level un US History.. You remember, before he resorted to Keynesian principles of increasing spending, which eliminated unemployment.
People, me boy, believe that EVERY SINGLE THEORY OF ECONOMICS IN THE WORLD is invalid. Perhaps, me boy, your belief that most economists do not believe in Keynesian policies came from your ass. Because you forgot to provide a link to proof of your claim. And, me boy, as a student of history, you are making unsubstantiated claims again.
Now, Milty is about your speed. He was a Libertarian. Defined as a person who supports a socio-economic theory that has never worked in the real world. Nice. But, as an economist willing to push those concepts he would be well paid by the Koch brothers and their many think tanks. As any economist with a higher level degree in economics or one of several other degrees has the option of doing, if they are willing to trade on their ethics.
Sorry it has not filtered down to you yet, but milton freedman and his supply side economics have long become about as popular among economists as a fart in church.
Really? Then you might want to try explaining that to Ben Bernanke, Rshermr...he holds a different view.
Bernanke: Federal Reserve caused Great Depression
"Although economists have pontificated over the decades about this or that cause of the Great Depression, even the current Fed chairman Ben S. Bernanke, agrees with Friedman’s assessment that the Fed caused the Great Depression.
At a Nov. 8, 2002, conference to honor Friedman’s 90th birthday, Bernanke, then a Federal Reserve governor, gave a speech at Friedman’s old home base, the University of Chicago. Here’s a bit of what Bernanke, the man who now runs the Fed – and thus, one of the most powerful people in the world – had to say that day:
I can think of no greater honor than being invited to speak on the occasion of Milton Friedman’s ninetieth birthday. Among economic scholars, Friedman has no peer. …
Today I’d like to honor Milton Friedman by talking about one of his greatest contributions to economics, made in close collaboration with his distinguished coauthor, Anna J. Schwartz. This achievement is nothing less than to provide what has become the leading and most persuasive explanation of the worst economic disaster in American history, the onset of the Great Depression – or, as Friedman and Schwartz dubbed it, the Great Contraction of 1929-33.
… As everyone here knows, in their “Monetary History” Friedman and Schwartz made the case that the economic collapse of 1929-33 was the product of the nation’s monetary mechanism gone wrong. Contradicting the received wisdom at the time that they wrote, which held that money was a passive player in the events of the 1930s, Friedman and Schwartz argued that “the contraction is in fact a tragic testimonial to the importance of monetary forces.”
After citing how Friedman and Schwartz documented the Fed’s continual contraction of the money supply during the Depression and its aftermath – and the subsequent abandonment of the gold standard by many nations in order to stop the devastating monetary contraction – Bernanke adds:
Before the creation of the Federal Reserve, Friedman and Schwartz noted, bank panics were typically handled by banks themselves – for example, through urban consortiums of private banks called clearinghouses. If a run on one or more banks in a city began, the clearinghouse might declare a suspension of payments, meaning that, temporarily, deposits would not be convertible into cash. Larger, stronger banks would then take the lead, first, in determining that the banks under attack were in fact fundamentally solvent, and second, in lending cash to those banks that needed to meet withdrawals. Though not an entirely satisfactory solution – the suspension of payments for several weeks was a significant hardship for the public – the system of suspension of payments usually prevented local banking panics from spreading or persisting. Large, solvent banks had an incentive to participate in curing panics because they knew that an unchecked panic might ultimately threaten their own deposits.
It was in large part to improve the management of banking panics that the Federal Reserve was created in 1913. However, as Friedman and Schwartz discuss in some detail, in the early 1930s the Federal Reserve did not serve that function. The problem within the Fed was largely doctrinal: Fed officials appeared to subscribe to Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon’s infamous ‘liquidationist’ thesis, that weeding out “weak” banks was a harsh but necessary prerequisite to the recovery of the banking system. Moreover, most of the failing banks were small banks (as opposed to what we would now call money-center banks) and not members of the Federal Reserve System. Thus the Fed saw no particular need to try to stem the panics. At the same time, the large banks – which would have intervened before the founding of the Fed – felt that protecting their smaller brethren was no longer their responsibility. Indeed, since the large banks felt confident that the Fed would protect them if necessary, the weeding out of small competitors was a positive good, from their point of view.
In short, according to Friedman and Schwartz, because of institutional changes and misguided doctrines, the banking panics of the Great Contraction were much more severe and widespread than would have normally occurred during a downturn. …
Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve. I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression. You’re right, we did it. We’re very sorry. But thanks to you, we won’t do it again."
