It's really quite simple.  In the history of humankind, no right-wing policy has ever worked.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_Ocbt6l5NE

by Perry Logan (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 557 comments [74 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Sunday, Jan 4, 2009 at 4:40:55 AM

I don't know where you get your news, but last I heard the GOP Bush administration not only asked for & got a stimulus they are pumping money all over the place with their bail outs. How does this make for a laisez faire economy?

You say they aren't regulating the economy. Well what are all those alphabet agencies in DC? The economy is highly regulated, Republican BS about free markets not  withstanding.

When the left starts talking about the free market GOP it seems so contrary to the facts I don't know how they can be so out of touch with reality. It all seems so Alice In Wonderland:

If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?

This is no way to run an economy.

by Darren Wolfe (15 articles, 400 quicklinks, 141 diaries, 1031 comments [84 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Jan 4, 2009 at 8:16:49 AM

A new book, "Nothing to Fear: FDR's Inner Circle and the Hundred Days That Created Modern America" by Adam Cohen, describes how FDR's New Deal was crafted through a process of rigorous argument within the president's innermost circle during FDR's First Hundred Days in office.

Cohen, a member of the New York Times editorial board, "delivers an exemplary and remarkably timely narrative of FDR's famous first Hundred Days as president," according to Publishers Weekly.

"Providing a new perspective on an oft-told story, Cohen zeroes in on the five Roosevelt aides-de-camp whom he rightly sees as having been the most influential in developing FDR's wave of extraordinary actions. These were agriculture secretary Henry Wallace, presidential aide Raymond Moley, budget director Lewis Douglas, labor secretary Frances Perkins and Civil Works Administration director Harry Hopkins. This group, Cohen emphasizes, did not work in concert. The liberal Perkins, Wallace and Hopkins often clashed with Douglas, one of the few free-marketers in FDR's court. Moley hovered somewhere in between the two camps. As Cohen shows, the liberals generally prevailed in debates. However, the vital foundation for FDR's New Deal was crafted through a process of rigorous argument within the president's innermost circle rather than ideological consensus. Cohen's exhaustively researched and eloquently argued book provides a vital new level of insight into Roosevelt's sweeping expansion of the federal government's role in our national life."

by Runner (11 articles, 35 quicklinks, 47 diaries, 39 comments) on Sunday, Jan 4, 2009 at 10:33:00 AM

Everyone in America needs to know(if they haven't figured it out yet) that the only agenda of the Republican party is to serve the interests of big business and the wealthy elite who own them. Free market economic theory was just propaganda to give big business free reign to rape and pillage. Republicans will resort to socialism or even communism to keep the wealthy happy. Just look at the Wall street bailout and you will see that welfare for the rich is what they really stand for. There is nothing they will not do to provide for the rich and take from the poor or middle class. Plutocrats is their definition

by Simple Truth (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 130 comments [26 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Jan 4, 2009 at 11:16:09 AM

You better look at the numbers again:

House Democrat votes re bailout:  172 for, 63 against

House Republican votes:  94 for, 108 against.

The bailout was overwhelmingly supported by DEMOCRATS. More Republicans voted AGAINST it than FOR it.

by Starbuck (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 71 comments [2 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Jan 4, 2009 at 8:53:13 PM

Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman says, "The New Deal wasn’t as successful in the short run as it was in the long run. And the reason for FDR’s limited short-run success, which almost undid his whole program, was the fact that his economic policies were too cautious." FDR listened too much to conservatives of his day saying go slow.

by Runner (11 articles, 35 quicklinks, 47 diaries, 39 comments) on Sunday, Jan 4, 2009 at 12:08:43 PM

On CBS’ Face The Nation this morning, with host Bob Schieffer, Vice President Cheney was unwilling to admit any culpability for the financial crisis Obama and the nation now face. Cheney would only say that a “new set of problems developed only over the last six months.” (youtube video) By saying that the financial crisis “developed in just the past six months,” Cheney is following the herd of elephants who disclaim any culpability.

by Runner (11 articles, 35 quicklinks, 47 diaries, 39 comments) on Sunday, Jan 4, 2009 at 1:03:09 PM

...including great links (which clearly debunks "where do you get your news").

The problem is not "conservatives" or "Republicans" who are just poor stooges for the Predators ...babbling some mish-mash  half-assed "ideology" or "philosophy" in hopes that they too may someday join the predator class.

...or they read some Ayn Rand bullshit in High School and never got over it.

 

 

by waldopaper (15 articles, 3 quicklinks, 34 diaries, 609 comments [84 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Jan 4, 2009 at 3:05:18 PM

It's funny, FDR pretty much did everything he said he was not going to do in the campaign against Hoover.  Maybe there was a coup.

The New Deal is called fascism by some, socialism by others.

The fascism part comes from the planned economy with the NRA and AAA to set up trade associations and allow self rule by industry under government suprvision. It also promoted industrial combinations and corporate monopolies. The belief was that the problems were low prices, and the way out of the problem they said was to create scarcity in production to increase prices and profits.

Of course, people could not afford even the low prices. So FDR made this problem worse by paying farmers to plow up crops and not plant, and to reduce livestock. Many went hungry as food was destroyed. Population  grew at it's lowest levels since records were kept from 1930-1939.  In some sections of the country population growth was flat.

The socialism part was unemployment benefits, social security and public works projects. These were largely positives, but the money came from borrowed money (except social security which was taxed). FDR could have simply issued his own debt free money for these and other projects like Lincoln. Also, FDR initially opposed Social Security and Minimum Wage Acts but public demand forced him to accept it several years later than they could otherwise have been enacted.

The confiscation of citizens gold at 21 dollars an oz was followed by increasing the price we would pay for gold to 35 dollars, highest in the world. This led to the USD being devalued against gold, while increasing the dollars value against foreign currencies. Not to mention the fleecing of the citizens who owned the gold before it's value was increased. This put our exporters at a disadvantage, so much so we ended up importing cheaper corn from abroad while FDR was paying farmers not to grow corn to keep US corn prices high.  We could not export much corn at our high prices and strong dollar, and it was a global depression. So we ended up acquiring 3/4 of the worlds gold as we imported gold from those who wanted to sell it at our high prices and exported dollars that other countries used to buy goods from countries with lower prices.

FDR also took over bad farm and home mortgages from those banks  holding them, and gave them bonds with guaranteed interest. For the homes and farm owners who could not pay back the loans, the government foreclosed on them at a loss.

And the RFC, set up by Hoover, came to the rescue of some of the bigger banks and industries, again, using money borrowed from the banks.

Meanwhile, the root cause of the depression was in fact low wages and lack of credit and money in circulation in the real economy. There was plenty of money, but it was not circulating, and little credit. Kind of like today. 

In fact, the downturn in the economy in 1937 after a mild recovery from 1933-1936 was partly due to reduced spending, but mainly due to the Fed doubled the reserve requirement for banks in a pre-emptive attack on inflation.  Kind of like Sir Bubbles and Helicopter Ben raising interest rates due to the speculative run driving up oil prices  that caused the housing bubble to burst.

Spending by FDR did stimulate the economy, but not enough trickled down to the real economy, and was done with money that was borrowed from the bankers. 

Of course,  FDR officially recognized Stalins USSR and guaranteed loans made to the Soviets through the newly stablished Import-Export Bank. Hitler also did pretty well during this period with significant financing from American finance and industry.

Seems like we financed the build up of both military machines before the war, and then went on to lend-lease for the Soviets and British. Funny, Stalin was our big ally and probably the biggest winner of that war if you discount the millions of Soviets killed, and you can be sure he did. Never did get our war debts repaid.

But at the cost of 300,000 dead Americans, and over 50 million worldwide, the depression ended due to WW II.

 

by pft (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 601 comments [7 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Jan 4, 2009 at 6:23:41 PM

Right Wing efforts to re-write history will accelerate as they try to oppose Obama's policies by attacking FDR's legacy and blaming the Great Depression on FDR's policies - notwithstanding the fact that the Great Depression was well under way when FDR took office in 1933. Many FDR bashers quote skewed and factually misinterpreted data presented in a book by libertarian author Jim Powell, "FDR's Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression." Richard Nixon biographer Conrad Black writes a piece in The Daily Beast about “Why The Right Should Leave FDR Alone:”

Hoover had made the worst possible selection of policy options - higher taxes and tariffs and a shrunken money supply. The unemployment rate was approximately 33%, about five times what it is now, and there was no direct relief for the unemployed. They could beg, steal, or starve, though Hoover claimed that they prospered selling apples.

On Inauguration Day, 1933 (then March 4), there were machine gun nests at the corners of the great government buildings in Washington, for the only time since the Civil War. All banks in 32 states had been closed. Six other states had closed almost all their banks. In the other ten states and D.C., withdrawals were limited to 5 percent of deposits, and in Texas to $10 per day. The New York Stock Exchange and Chicago commodity exchanges had also been closed, indefinitely. The financial system had effectively collapsed, and was threatening to take the life savings of millions of people and what was left of the world’s financial system with it.

In a fever of activity, Roosevelt guaranteed bank deposits, made the federal government a temporary non-voting preferred shareholder in thousands of suddenly under-capitalized banks—more than half the banks in the country—refinanced millions of residential and farm mortgages, tolerated cartels and collective bargaining to raise prices and wages, increased the money supply, effectively departed the gold standard, repealed Prohibition of alcoholic beverages (wrenching one of the nation’s largest industries out of the hands of the underworld), and legislated reduced working hours and improved working conditions for the whole work force. In the next two years, he set up the Securities and Exchange Commission, created the Social Security system, and broadened the powers of the Federal Reserve to equal those of other national central banks, in what became known as the Second New Deal.

Unemployment declined from about 33 percent when Roosevelt entered office to half of one percent when he died in office 12 years and 39 days later, and had been at that point for four and a half years, since several months before Pearl Harbor. The average per capita income doubled under Roosevelt, and was more equitably distributed, as the United States led the Allies to victory over the Nazis and Japanese imperialists, and the admission or restoration of Japan, Germany, France, and Italy to the democratic and civilized Western Alliance.

Roosevelt won four consecutive presidential elections with an average of more than 56 percent of the vote, and his party, while he led it, won seven consecutive elections of both houses of Congress. These are not the usual rewards for prolongation of economic distress. FDR had his faults, but he was a great leader at a time when America and the Western world had to have a great leader in the White House, and the American loony right should aim their spitballs elsewhere. There is no shortage of deserving targets.

University of California historian Eric Rauchway says:

The most important thing to know about Roosevelt's economics is that, despite claims to the contrary, the economy recovered during the New Deal. During Roosevelt's first two terms, the U.S. economy grew at average annual growth rates of 9 percent to 10 percent, with the exception of the recession year of 1937-1938...

Excepting 1937-1938, unemployment fell each year of Roosevelt's first two terms. In part, the jobs came from Washington, which directly employed as many as 3.6 million people to build roads, bridges, ports, airports, stadiums, and schools -- as well as, of course, to paint murals and stage plays. But new jobs also came from the private sector, where manufacturing work increased apace.

This basic fact is clear -- unless you quote only the unemployment rate for the recession year 1938 and count government employees hired under the New Deal as unemployed, which conservative commentators have taken to doing.

1937-1938 was the period Roosevelt dialed back the New Deal in the name of conservative budget principles. By 1937 things were a lot better than they were in 1933. FDR himself actually subscribed to conservative budget principles and in 1937 he was persuaded to balance the budget, or try to. When FDR cut New Deal spending, to balance the budget, the economy went back down again.  What saved the economy, and the New Deal, was the enormous fiscal stimulus program known as World War II, which finally provided a fiscal stimulus adequate to the economy’s needs.

Aside from Krugman there has been few in the media to respond to conservative revisionists who try to indirectly attack Obama's proposals by attacking FDR's New Deal. In the coming months and years Right Wing efforts to re-write history will accelerate as they try to oppose Obama's policies by attacking FDR's legacy. Democrats must be prepared to aggressively respond to such retroactive propaganda efforts.

by Runner (11 articles, 35 quicklinks, 47 diaries, 39 comments) on Sunday, Jan 4, 2009 at 9:13:59 PM

Two points:

Bushie realized he screwed teh pooch on the economy, so he is trying to throw money at it.  Unfortunatly, he put the money in the wrong place, and he as asked for no accountability.   A new deal  type program is needed, and soon.

 Also, the Obama administration needs to go back and attach some very large strings to all bail out moneys, including those that have bone before.

The economy needs massive reregulation, inclucing manditory domestic content regulations.  Until the manufacturing base is rebuilt, there can be no lasting recovery.

by kanawah (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 100 comments) on Sunday, Jan 4, 2009 at 10:02:10 PM