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From: plh@ukma.UUCP (Paul L. Hightower)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: 1933 and Roosevelt, discussion wanted?
Message-ID: <1145@ukma.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 5-Mar-85 11:31:06 EST
Article-I.D.: ukma.1145
Posted: Tue Mar  5 11:31:06 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 7-Mar-85 03:47:26 EST
References: <705@ccice5.UUCP>
Organization: Univ. of KY Mathematical Sciences
Lines: 27

>It has been very fashionable lately for the right-of-center crowd to
>praise Roosevelt as a great president (something we left-of-centers'
>have known all along!).  But there is no evidence they would act any
>differently than Hoover did.  (Too little government intervention,
>too late)...

Objection!  Hoover interfered far too much, jawboning industry into
keeping wages high despite falling prices.  Hoover succeeded in turning
a recession into depression.  Calvin Coolidge was a great president :
he would have done nothing, and the business cycle would have corrected
itself, as always.  But Hoover and other social engineers deplored the
cycle.  Many of us right-of-center types deplore social engineering!

>I throw these statistics of 1933 out for discussion:
>
>1. 1/4 of the work force was unemployed
>2. the wage rate was 3/4 that of 1929
>3. 1/5 of the nations banks had failed
>4. prices were 3/4 their 1929 level
>
>Roosevelt was trying to solve all these problems *without* deficit
>spending (contrary to popular thought)...

That's what we call a "Tax-and-Spend" Democrat. 

Paul Hightower
University of Kentucky