by Geodesic » Thu 15 Oct 2009, 10:10:15
Communists vs. Nazis. A struggle of evil vs. evil. Yes, some things never change.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AlexdeLarge', '[')b]A Photo Essay on the Great Depression
http://www.english.illinois.edu/MAPS/depression/photoessay.htm
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'G')ellert, Hugo, 1924. Vote Communist poster. During the 1920s the American Communist Party was often a victim at once of government oppression and of its own sectarian struggles, but in the mid-1930s it adopted a "popular front" policy of alliances with liberal organizations. Its membership tripled, but more important still were the thousands of sympathizers who endorsed party-supported causes
Now follow up with todays market ticker.
http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/1511-Is-The-Bloom-Coming-Off-The-Rose.html$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')his was the error of trying to "manage" the Depression in this fashion. Note that coming off the 1921 economic contraction Warren Harding (then-President) along with The Fed took a hands-off approach and the market forced the malinvestment from the system; the consequence was that in less than two years unemployment fell from 12% to 3.2% and the economy roared back.
Contrast this "hands off" approach to that of just a decade later when instead of forcing the bubble credit expansion of the late 1920s out of the system The Government instead undertook to "manage" the problem - and turned a speculative bubble bust into a decade-long economic mess.
FDR and The Fed wasn't the solution to The Depression - they were in fact the cause of it, turning a necessary credit contraction into an economic disaster, and we're now doing our level best to repeat those mistakes.
