President Hoover's 1931 stimulus plan
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- Опубліковано 13 лип 2011
- "Some of the reactionary economists urged that we should allow the liquidation to take its course until we had found bottom.... We determined that we would not follow the advice of the bitter-end liquidationists and see the whole body of debtors of the United States brought to bankruptcy and the savings of our people brought to destruction...Instead we met the situation with proposals to private business and to Congress of the most gigantic program of economic defense and counterattack ever evolved in the history of the Republic." -Hoover
(Wikipedia)
Hoover confronted a world of political possibilities when he returned home in 1919. Democratic Party leaders looked on him as a potential candidate for President, and President Wilson privately preferred Hoover as his successor. "There could not be a finer one," asserted Franklin D. Roosevelt, then a rising star from New York. Hoover briefly considered becoming a Democrat, but he believed that 1920 would be a Republican year.
A self-described progressive and reformer, Hoover saw the presidency as a vehicle for improving the conditions of all Americans by encouraging public-private cooperation-what he termed "volunterism".
Long before he had entered politics, he had denounced laissez-faire thinking.[32]
At the outset of the Depression, Hoover claims in his memoirs that he rejected Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon's suggested "leave-it-alone" approach, and called many business leaders to Washington to urge them not to lay off workers or cut wages.
Congress, desperate to increase federal revenue, enacted the Revenue Act of 1932, which was the largest peacetime tax increase in history.[52] The Act increased taxes across the board, so that top earners were taxed at 63% on their net income. The 1932 Act also increased the tax on the net income of corporations from 12% to 13.75%.
The final attempt of the Hoover Administration to rescue the economy occurred in 1932 with the passage of the Emergency Relief and Construction Act, which authorized funds for public works programs and the creation of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC). The RFC's initial goal was to provide government-secured loans to financial institutions, railroads and farmers. The RFC had minimal impact at the time, but was adopted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and greatly expanded as part of his New Deal.
Even so, New Dealer Rexford Tugwell[56] later remarked that although no one would say so at the time, "practically the whole New Deal was extrapolated from programs that Hoover started."
"For three long years," Roosevelt said in accepting his party's nomination, "I have been going up and down this country preaching that government . . . costs too much. I shall not stop that preaching."
FDR campaigned in 1932 on a platform of slashing the size and cost of government, and of ending the "reckless and extravagant" spending of Herbert Hoover.
Stop that preaching he didn't. He accused Hoover of presiding over "the greatest spending administration in peacetime in all our history . . . an administration that has piled bureau on bureau, commission on commission." He slammed the Republican's record of "reckless and extravagant" spending, and of thinking "that we ought to center control of everything in Washington as rapidly as possible." He mocked those who thought "a huge expenditure of public funds" was the best way to grow the economy of succumbing "to the illusions of economic magic." His running mate, Texas Congressman John Nance Garner, even warned that Hoover was "leading the country down the path of socialism." - Jeff Jacoby
"Unemployment Relief"
Recorded October 18, 1931
Full speech at The Authentic History Center
Transcript at: www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pi...
Most Americans don't realize what an impressive list of accomplishments that Hoover had before he became President. He was an extremely talented individual who grew up in poverty and became a multi-millionaire by his mid-thirties. He then became a philanthropist and contributed millions of dollars to battle poverty overseas, before entering American politics. Unfortunately, this very gifted man will only be known for the Great Depression.
"When it was all over, I once made a list of New Deal ventures begun during Hoover’s years as Secretary of Commerce and then as president. . . . The New Deal owed much to what he had begun." -FDR advisor Rexford G. Tugwell
SaulOhio why they dont relate to kings in the past time if dounuts was all that they invented in that time and im sure elvis. Presley didnt amused president hoover
Hoover is often villified. He made millions(not on wall street) but was great philanthropist throughout the world He did not deserve being villified. Most of love a guy or gal who sees his faults and turns a new leaf and goes against his earlier beliefs and works towards new ones. Yes before 1931 he believed in market forces to get out of the depression. But he saw the light and here he was planning his won new deal. It is ironic that when FDR was campaigning against Hoover, FDR criticized Hoover's own new deal as fiscally imprudent. Hoover like FDR were pushed from below, that is from suffering of the people and the people on the verge of revolution against US corporate crony capitalism.
And the GOP was vilified with him as a "party of the rich" that didn't care about ordinary Americans. I sometimes wish a Democrat had won the presidency in 1928, because then Republicans would be the dominant party today and Democrats would be the ones demonized as the "party of the rich."
@@hotwax9376 The GOP dug their own grave since 1928. They've had almost 100 years to correct their perception as the party of the rich and they've been an abysmal failure. Because the GOP IS the party of the rich.
@@jameshutchinson568 I would argue that both parties to some extent are a "party of the rich," but even if it was true that the GOP is the party of the rich, that would actually be a good thing, because it means that they are the party of success and economic prosperity. Most of the positive changes that have come about in America happened because of support (both political and financial) from rich people. The only reason people think it's bad for a party to represent the interests of the rich is because they've been inculcated to believe (particularly by Democrats) that rich people are inherently bad when they aren't.
@@hotwax9376 That's a total crock of shit. The most prosperous time in this country's history was the 1950s and 1960s, when the richest Americans were paying a 90% income tax rate. Reagan deserves more blame than anybody for the villification of the rich, by cutting income taxes for the rich from over 70% to 38%.
So why didn't the Federal Reserve System prevent the collapse of economy before the Great Depression ? It was imposed upon the country to do just that.
" for six years that man has given me unsolicited advice-all of it bad".
Calvin Coolidge about Herbert Hoover.
As Coolidge creates the Great Depression
@@JohnJohnson-oe3ot Coolidge didn’t create the Depression. Hoover and Roosevelt made it worse though.
@@deus_vult8111 how so?
@@tomlehr861 Hoover's bad economic policy turned a bad recession (which happened due to his bad economic policies as Secretary of the Treasury) into a Great Depression. FDR's policies prevented the economy from recovering, which is why it didn't recover until many of his policies were removed to mobilize for WW2.
@@McAppl3d Hoover wasn't Secretary of the Treasury. The Depression was a worldwide crisis, it was a failing of the capitalist system.
Personally, I don't think history was really good towards Hoover. It is a fact that he may have been on the verge of Presidential greatness if the Depression hadn't have happened.
***** Amen to that
You have it exactly wrong! But for the stimulus we would BE in a depression.
+Failed Trolls How'd that prediction work out?
He didn't cause the Depression, but he had the bad luck of being in office when it began. No matter who the president was, they were doomed to being hated in their time and shafted by history.
+Failed Trolls The heading says this was in 1931. The Great Depression started in 1929. This stimulus couldn't have caused the Depression because the Depression had already began.
Hoover, a great American.
His voice sounds rather modern, compared to some of the more old fashioned voices you'd hear from presidents of this era
If he had beleived in laissez-faire in banking, then he would have abolished the Federal Reserve and removed all sorts of banking regulations, especially the prohibition on branch banking at the time.
Hoover was ALWAYS a believer in interventionism. He chaired a Presidential commission on unemployment in 1920 that concluded that the government had to play a strong leadership role in recessions and depressions. As secretary of commerce he imposed regulations like standardization.
So this proves that Hoover made the depression worse through government action
Correct.
The only government action that made it worse was Smoot-Hawley. Other than that, government action helped alleviate the suffering of Americans caused by the almost entire collapse of your beloved laissez faire capitalist system.
Great speach,🙏🏽
His statement that ONLY MINOR NUMBERS OF PEOPLE are afflicted by the Depression in 1931 is certainly very short of the actual number or perhaps deliberatly only fractional information was reaching him.
...in other words, mans inate affinity to get greedy MUST be kept in check, and yet, the growth of the size of gov't must also be kept in check. This, is the riddle of our times. But NO ONE can reasonably say within the last couple decades, that GREED, in excessive fashion, has NOT been the downfall of us all.
The threats were minor, and hardly used. They are mostly implied when the government "asks" you to do something. What really got businessmen's "cooperation" was Hoover's promises of protection against labor unions.
And no matter how you view it, the results were disastrous for the economy, turning a mild recession into a depression. When there is less money going around, prices and nominal wage rates have to fall. The alternative is mass unemployment.
You are the one who diverted the discussion to Coolidge. As I argued, it doesn't matter that Coolidge believed in laissez-faire so long as we had a central bank inflating the economy.
It is the Fed printing money and monkeying with interest rates that remove the free market's reastrictions on bank landing. Without that, and bailouts, suspension of specie payments, and other government protections and favors to banks, lending would be limited by the availability of real loanable funds.
No, he didn't decide to become an interventionist after the "failure of the laissez-faire approach". He called those Washington conferences with businessmen right away afetr the October '29 crash. He had been planning it since 1920. Planning for Hoover Dam had already been going on since, I think, 1926.
He had a good speaking voice.he seems to care and is into what he is doing.
No. He was interventionist from the very start, even before the '29 crash. Didn't I mention those Washington conferences with businessmen something like three times already? Those started in late October of '29.
Hoover pressured business leaders to do what HE thought they should do on labor policy, using threats of labor legislation and promises of protection against labor unions, carrot and stick style. If that is not intervention, then nothing is.
its a shame that not all of the broadcasts audio were saved. I would love to get the "Address to the American National Red Cross" one from May 21, 1931
A self made millionaire who couldn't understand why everyone else couldn't be self made millionaires. The bonus march torching buried him.
I do not deny that FDR took what Hoover did and turned it, not just up to 11, but 110.
But Hoover was a much bigger interventionist than any American president before him, even the Progressive Teddy Roosevelt.
The previous policy towards recessions had been laissez-faire, and it served America well. They didn't try to prop up failing businesses or keep wages high, so the economy restabilized right away. But read Lee Ohanian's "What - Or Who - Started the Great Depression?"
Read "Hoover's Attack on Laissez-faire" by Murray Rothbard.
Talking about Hoover's plans and ideas right after WWI:
"Featured in Hoover's plan were increased inheritance taxes, public dams, and, significantly, government regulation of the stock market to eliminate 'vicious speculation.' Here was an early display of Hoover's hostility toward the stock market, a hostility that was to form one of the leitmotifs of his administration."
If people wanted Coolidge to intervene with the Fed, it was probably to restrain it, which WOULD have been a laissez-faire policy. Because the thing that you need to leave alone in laissez-faire is the private sector of the economy, and what should leave it alone is government agencies LIKE THE FEDERAL RESERVE!
1: I already agreed that Coolidge was a very lassez-faire president, EXCEPT FOR MONEY AND BANKING. He left the Fed in place, and it was the Fed that inflated the bubble that crashed in '29. You have not addressed that point, you know. Ben Strong's "Coup De Whiskey". Getting the stock market drunk with a lot of easy money is hardly laissez-faire.
2: Mellon and Hoover strongly disagreed on the right policy to follow after the '29 crash. Mellon wanted austerity, Hoover wanted stimulus. He got it.
During war, government has to spend vast amounts of money. There is necessarily a competition between the two warring governments, which can marshal the most in war materials and effectively put them on the battlefield. This diverts those resources from the private economy to the war.
You make a good point that it was a desperate situation but they should have looked at what was going on with the monetary policy, pulling money with high interest rates, tarriff acts (Smoot-Hawley), and past depressions and government NON-INTERVATION (1920-21).
Its a matter of degree. Hoover was the most interventionist American president yet.
So, you admit that even Coolidge intervened. Thank you for that admission.
Before 1929. every president at least did not interfere with prices or wages. When a recession hit, they let prices and wages fall as they needed to. Hoover was the first to pressure businesses to keep wages up.
Whether you agree to call it intervention or not, he still did it, and it still caused a recession to turn into The Great D.
The Great Depression was obviously already going on in 1931, which is why President Hoover had to address it, to save his presidency, but also to try to save the economy.
You haven't even made the case that there WAS any deregulation, much less explained the causal mechanism by which it could have caused the crash.
If the supply of money is increased by a central bank, it bids up the price of assets, especially in sectors of the economy that need a lot of borrowed money. People see the prices rise, they get excited at the prospect of easy profits, so they use easy money borrowed from banks to invest even more, bidding it up more.
But the real subject is not what any one person did. The President is not the entire government. The real issue here is whether or not laissez-faire policies caused the Great Depression. So even if Coolidge was 100% laissez-faire and wanted to abolish the Fed, but didn't have the power to do so, you still can't blame the Great Depression on laissez-faire, because we had the Fed pumping massive amounts of money almost directly into the stock market, inflating the bubble.
Have you ever heard of the Agricultural Marketting Act of 1929? That was in APRIL, months before the '29 crash. It was intended to help struggling farmers who had overexpanded production of farm goods during WWI. It is very much in keeping with his philosophy of bailing out businesses which the free market dictated need to be scaled back or closed.
But it was that desperate response that made things even worse.
In fact, Hoover was EAGER to put his own theories of government intervention into practice. He had been chomping at the bit even as Secretary of Commerce to intervene in the 1921 depression, but didn't get his chance (thankfully). With the 1929 crash, his real opportunity had arrived, and he implemented public works projects, pressured businesses with the threat of labor union legislation, increased spending, and promoted cartels.
The reason given for the Act does not change the fact that Hoover did sign it, and believed in it, giving the lie to the claim that he ever believed in laissez-faire.
If the problem was the result of WWI spending causing a relative overproduction of farm goods, then clearly THAT isn't the result of laissez-faire. The problems caused by one government intervention are used to rationalize more government intervention.
I disagree with all your post. Hoover engaged in coercive govt. intervention only if viewed from an extreme libertarian position.
His main view was that people and business should cooperate voluntarily, and in some cases under govt. guidance on big issues. That he fail was because he under-estimated over-estimated the extent to which businessmen and private citizens are willing to work together for the greater good.
Yes, you can be laissez-faire in everything except money and banking. Why should he interfere, when things looked good? Just let the Fed inflate! :(
Mellon's laissez-faire approach could only have failed to get results if it had been actually applied. Hoover denounced Mellon's "liquidationist" approach, and instead, applied a pre-Keynesian stimulus program. Public works, pressure on business leaders to keep wages and prices high, and so on. Murray Rothbard refers to it as "Hoover's New Deal".
"297 - Remarks to a Chamber of Commerce Conference on the Mobilization of Business and Industry for Economic Stabilization.
December 5, 1929"
"The second action necessary to maintain progress was the standard set by leading employers that so far as they were concerned there would be no movement to reduce wages, and a corresponding assurance from the leaders of labor that not only would they use their utmost influence to allay labor conflict, but would also cooperate with the employers..."
To the extent that he failed, he failed because he under-estimated to degree to which the public morale was shattered and no one was going to do any "volunteerism".
FDR understood this and put more weight behind the government's role in pushing things along.
Whatever one thinks, unless you were living then no one can criticize the desperate situation these men faced and how they needed solutions to a collapsing America (and world).
As I said already, it was a VERY important intervention, as Lee Ohanian calculates that it was responsible for 2/3 of the unemployment of the Great Depression. Go look up his "What - Or Who - Started the Great Depression.
Or at least read a summary of it, "Hoover's pro-labor stance helped cause Great Depression, UCLA economist says" by Meg Sullivan.
Read Lee Ohanian's "What - Or Who - Started the Great Depression". Ohanian blamed 2/3 of the unemployment of the Great Depression on Hoover's policy of pressuring businesses to keep wages high instead of cutting them as demanded by the market. He saw a fall in prices and wages as the problem to be solved, instead of the solution to the real underlying problem that it is.
Harding Coolidge presided over one of the greatest economies because of Laissez-Faire policy, allowing the markets to work. The markets corrected their growth a few times under coolidge and roared back faster with no intervention. Sad liberals don't know Hoover was one of them.
CREATING the Federal Reserve system was a dictatorial act. Imposing a system by force is not laissez-faire. Removing it, is.
And it is by citing Hoover's policies that people like Murray Rothbard and Lee Ohanian prove that Hoover was a big interventionist. Hoover Dam, Smoot-Hawley, those Washington conferences with businessmen where he told them what their labor policies should be, the 1920 conference on unemployment, his deficit spending...
Read Rothbard's "America's Great Depression".
I don't know about those things.
I do believe Gore Vidal described him as being often quite cruel towards his wife.
Halfhearted way? He was ALWAYS eager to intervene in economics. Even before the '29 crash, he was intervening. Ever hear of the "Agricultural Marketing Act" of April 1929?
"solve the labor isuue? Try CAUSE!
According to Lee Ohanian of UCLA, Hoover's policy was very effective in increasing unemployment. Yes, some businesses successfully ignored him, but enough caved to his pressure to cause unemployment to rise to 25%.
Read Lee Ohanian's "What -- Or Who -- Started the Great Depression?"
What deregulation? To my knowledge, Hoover was all about regulating the economy more and more. This was a guy who CREATED the FCC, a regulatory agency. Even before the crash, he signed the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1929. And, of course, the aforenamed "coup de whiskey" from the Fed was an attempt to regulate.
As to the numbers, look up the works of Lee Ohanian. He has done a lot of good quantitative work on the Great Depression.
Instead, banks can borrow from the Fed at low interest rates and lend that money out. Especially since the Fed lowered interest rates to 3.5% in 1927.
Yes, Ii agree that there were no restrictions on bank lending. The Fed and the government had removed them. And I don;t mean government regulations were removed. The natural limitations of the market were removed. Fear of bank failures was removed. Limits on real loanable funds were removed. Market discipline was removed.
So if economic activity is an end in itself, if all you want is to get a lot fo money being spent and people donig difficult, strenuous things, then yes, WWII was a great time for America's economy.
But if you want people better fed, clothed, sheltered, if you want them able to get the things they need in their individual pursuit of happiness, it was the worst time ever. Much of the same is true under FDR's New Deal.
That and his abhorrent tariff the year before.
If they had refused to go along, the law would have been passed, and they would be forced to obey it anyway.
Under such circumstances, there is no alternative to doing what the government wants you to do. Doing your own thing is no longer an option. If you do, they pass the law and get you to do what they want you to anyway.
I am not just telling you Rothbard's opinions. I am giving you the FACTS that Rothbard uses to prove his factual claims. Hoover DID call business leaders to Washington and pressure them, using threats of labor legislation combined with promises to protect them from labor unions, to keep wages high. And he is not alone. Lee Ohanian of UCLA (right wing think tank???) agrees, and cites many of the same facts.
I would say that famine is a big problem. But it was solved, not by government action, but by the free market system. There has never been a famine in any industrialized nation since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
The 1929 act was supposed to be to deal with the problem of LOW price hurting farmers. The usual fallacy of government interventionists. Low prices are a GOOD thing, but they mistake it for a bad thing.
Massive growth in FDR's years??????
Huhn? The economy continued to stagnate throughout FDR's administration.
If Hoover and FDR HAD done nothing, as some people claimed Hoover did, the economy would have recovered completely by 1934. Instead, the Great Depression lasted till the end of WWII.
If the point is to show that Hoover was not some sort of crazed proto-anarcho-libertarian/objectivist who believed that the govt. should be reduced to a corner office and let business work itself out...then yes, he was not a crazed proto-anarcho-libertarian/objectivist.
Hoover believed in private volunteerism to solve problems, as he'd done after WWI. But with the Great Depression he believed in govt. working cooperatively with states and business and individuals, as he states in this speech.
The thing is, though, that earlier depression was a post-war one, while the 1929 one came right after what was apparently a period of great boom.
I don't know.
But I figure when the public turns against you and begins calling their shanty-town "Hoovervilles", then I suppose one gets desperate for solutions.
I guess Hoover was President at the wrong time in American history.
Please explain to me how the fact that other presidents have done it before changes the fact that it is intervention.
And yes, they were coerced. They behaved differently from how they would if not for Hoover's promises/threats. If Hoover hadn't intervened that way, employers would have adjusted their wages and consumer prices in respo0nse to market pressure, this making the re-adjustments needed to end the recession, and unemployment would not have risen anywhere near as high.
And again from the same source:
"And this is not dictation or interference by the Government with business. It is a request from the Government that you cooperate in prudent measures to solve a national problem."
Hoover agrees with your interpretation that what he was doing was not interference, but if the government ASKS you to do something, it has the guns. It is often, and correctly, seen as a prelude to DEMANDING what is asked.
And even if "voluntary" it was the wrong policy.
GDP went up Whup-te-doo. If I was in charge of the economy, I could make GDP go up 100000% a year, just like Mugabe did in Zimbabwe by printing up lots of money. That was all just because of government spending.
But production of goods and hours worked stayed in a slump. Just because people are exchanging larger numbers of dollars doesn't mean things are getting better. Businesses were afraid to invest because they had no clue what new nonsense the government was going to do.
"People NATURALLY work together for their own self-interest, promoting the mutual self-interest of many."
Not true, and certainly not in a way that can solve big problems. When big problems arise you need someone/something that can handle, assess, and organize solutions on a big scale, and only govt. can do that.
And from understanding, that 1929 Act was to deal with over-production of basic crops by farmers due to high prices. It failed, and as abandoned. Blame the farmers no him.
When some sector of the economy has overexpanded, and is producing more of its product than consumers demand, then it needs to be scaled back. Resources need to be released from that sector or industry so they can be used elsewhere, where they are more needed. This si the process by which an economy heals from a recession. But Hoover thoguht it was the disease itself, and very actively worked to stop it.
But Hoover threatened to use the force of law. Threats are a form of force.
Look up the Memoirs of Herbert Hoover. Volume: Volume 3: The Great Depression 1929-1941.
So pointing a gun at someone and threatening to pull the trigger is not the same as actually pulling the trigger. This is true. But if caught, you would still be arrested on felony charges.
I don't really count soldiers shipped overseas as employed.
It all hinges on what you think the purpose of economic activity is.
Classical and Austrian economists always see economic activity as the means to the ends of consumers. People work, invest, buy, sell, and hire workers in order to obtain the goods and services they need and want, such as food, clothing, shelter, recreation, liesure, entertainment, transportation...
You seem to treat economic activity as an end in itself.
No. He agrees because he is rationalizing just the same as you.
What is the difference beetween a politician telling someone to do somethign because if he doesn't, a law will be passed to make him do it anyway, or just outright passing a law?
Either way, it is getting people to act against their own judgment.
Claiming no force is used and it is not intervention is simply rationalization, no better than what I described the Mafia doing.
Also, look up "286 - Telegrams to Governors Urging Stimulation of Public Works To Aid the Economy.
November 23, 1929"
There, you can read about Hoover proposing exactly the same kinds of stimulus programs as we had after the 2008 crash, and he is doing it in November of 1929, the month after the crash. Sort of contradicts your claim that he only intervened after the supposed failure of his laissez-faire policies.
The Fed flooded the economy with huge amounts of new money. That ALWAYS sets off huge speculative binges, creating bubbles.
You can't blame that on deregulation, especially since you haven't explained exactly what was deregulated. What deregulation? Name me some regulations that were repealed.
No doubt the Great Depression forced him to occasionally try other means, but the half-hearted way these were pushed menat they failed as well.
"Government promoted "volunteerism" is like the "cooperation" demanded from the mafia."
yes that didn't stop many business from completely ignoring him when he attempted to solve the labor issue, if I recall.
Again, you're being extreme in your judgment. Not everything in the world is either Ayn Rand or Hitler.
He ddin't seem very comfortable behind a radio microphone.
People NATURALLY work together for their own self-interest, promoting the mutual self-interest of many. Hoover clearly interfered with that a LOT.
By "extreme libertarian position", you mean a position that defines its terms clearly, like "coercion", "government" and "intevention".
Lee Ohanian of UCLA clearly does not share my "extreme libertarian position" since he believes that antitrust regulation is necessary, but he comes to the same conclusion.
And I don't see the similarities between internal economic "govt. intervention", and external military ones. If you think entering WWI was wrong, fine, then make a moral argument not try to cobine it with internal economic philosophy.
And who ever said Hoover believed in laissez-faire? WHO believes in laissez-faire anymore anyhow? Hoover did not believe in "law of the jungle" economics, nor in state-run ones either.
This is what is so maddening sometimes about arguing with pro-government nutcases on UA-cam.
I have given you another source, three times already. Lee Ohanian of THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LAS ANGELES! Hardly a right-wing think tank. Please, find a way to accuse HIM of bias, too.
And both of them use Hoover's own memoirs as their source. That is available on the internet for the price of a quick search.
Its not absurd.
If every President in the US always took the Oath of Office, would that mean that no president ever took the Oath?
Your "argument" is a non-sequiter. That every president did it doesn't mean it is not intervention.
Your refusal to admit that one word applies to the situation does not change the fact that Hoover did exactly what Ohanian and Rothbard say he did. This is not something they made up. You can read about him BRAGGING about it in his memoirs. You don't have to take their word for it.
Look up "281 - Statement Announcing a Series of Conferences With Representatives of Business, Industry, Agriculture, and Labor.
November 15, 1929"
There is plenty of other primary source material out there.
Hoover did himself no favors with his radio voice. He speaks in a very dull monotone, compared to FDR.
FDR speaks in a Mid Atlantic accent. That's the snobby voice of the rich east coste families. Wouldn't work nowadays
It was his conclusion. You quoted it as an authority. You provided no evidence, which makes it completely unconvincing.
I have my sources, too. They agree that Coolidge had a very laissez-faire attitude towards the economy, except, unfortunately, in banking. He not only left the Federal Reserve in place, he encouraged its activities. Its actions, especially bailing out England in 1927, are what created the bubble that collapsed in 1929.
so you're saying that Hoover's tax and tariff increases and intense spending counts as doing nothing? Roosevelt never criticized Hoover for doing nothing. he criticized him for taxing and spending too much (although we all know that he and Truman would do the same thing later on). all the Keynesian economic propaganda is nonsense. The Great Depression didn't turn into a Depression over night. especially a Great one.
Anyway, do you really think it argues to your position that everything at least seemed fine while a much more laissez-faire president, Coolidge, was in office, then almost immediately went to hell once Hoover, a big interventionist, took over?
I believe that act was to deal with farmers' over-production due to what was seen as high prices carried over still from WWI, with the govt. buying surpluses from them.
It didn't work and so Hoover didn't renew it. I don't see the problem.
I won't debate the silly libertarian "govt. is the problem" mantra, though it is funny seeing you write it on an internet that likely wouldn't exist if not for the govt..
Did the government THREATEN to pass legislation if businesses didn't comply "voluntarily"? Yes. Case closed.
If you point a gun, but don't pull the trigger, are you forcing the people you are pointing it at to do what you want them to? By your argument, no, because you have not actually done anything violent. They have not been harmed.
The businessmen had no choice but to comply. They behaved in a way contrary to how they would have behaved without Hoover's interference. So he interfered.
Hello
If Coolidge had believed in laissez-faire in banking, he would have not only abolished the Federal Reserve, he would have either returned to a real gold standard, instead of the pseudo-gold standard we had then, or instituted real free banking, abolished legal tender laws, and allowed banks to issue their own currency, and letting them sink or swim as their own policies proved good or bad. No bailouts, no suspension of specie payments.
You have a poor understanding of what laissez-faire means.
This is what I get from statist ideologues all the time. If thy hear something they don't like, they accuse people of bias. It doesn't matter if there is even any evidence of bias. You haven't provided me with any reason to believe Rothbard is biased, much less Ohanian.
This is just another way of sticking your fingers in your ears and humming.
I could simply call your Robert Ferrell biased and be done. It would be really easy. I prefer discussing evidence.
"Reactionary economists..." Yes, because big Gov is revolutionary, LOL.
It is. It’s progressive. Progressivism is Revolutionary
So you repeat the same argument, when I have asked WHY that premise leads to that conclusion once already. WHY does the fact that other presidents have used the same means before mean that it isn't intervention?
They are using the threat of forcing businesses to do what they want in order to get businesses to do what they want without going through the trouble of passing a law to do it.
Your argument is a non-sequiter. Conclusion does not follow from the premise.
You seem to misunderstand. I am trying to counter the propaganda that Hoover did nothing. He clearly did a LOT, and that was the problem.
Stating someone else's opinion is not evidence.
Name me regulations that were removed. Name me regulations that were not properly enforced. Explain why these particular regulations, or lack of them, allowed the bubble to grow and collapse.
I have explained a mechanism by which the bubble grew as a consequence of regulation, regulation for which there is evidence.
You've got nothing.
In other words, you dismiss his argument because of the conclusion it leads to.
Has it occurred to you that maybe Rothbard is a libertarian BECAUSE he was convinced to be by the very evidence he presents? If the things he says are true, libertarianism follows.
In fact, anyone who discovered all these particular facts on their own would BECOME a libertarian. You are dismissing the argument because of the conclusion.
Your refusal to admit that one word applies to the situation does not change the fact that Hoover did exactly what Ohanian and Rothbard say he did. This is not something they made up. You can read about him BRAGGING about it in his memoirs. You don't have to take their word for it.
Look up "281 - Statement Announcing a Series of Conferences With Representatives of Business, Industry, Agriculture, and Labor.
November 15, 1929"
There is plenty of other primary source material out there.