--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "John" <jr_...@...> wrote: > > I just want to repeat this over and over again. Nobody seems to be listening. Maybe the repetition will create a vibration of warning for the entire forum and the country as a whole. >
There's a debate going on as to which road to take now: more stimulus, which most liberal economists are heavily recommending and which history demands, vs the conservative Hoover-like deficit fearmongers. Take a careful look at how FDR responded to the Great Depression [below] with massive stimulus spending and how when listening to the deficit fearmongers and stopping the spending it brought back the downturn. After resuming the stimulus spending, the recovery proceeded. Note these two particular paragraphs in the context below them: Roosevelt did make one mistake after this. He caved in to the conservatives in Congress (and his treasury secretary) and presented a balanced budget, cutting stimulus spending. Roosevelt was also worried that inflation would ensue if GDP grew too fast, which it was. GDP growth was tremendous. The result is that the economy contracted 6% to 86.1 billion in 1938. The recovery slipped. --- Here are the GDP figures of the New Deal in today's dollars. These are the facts. To suggest that the New Deal did not help, and maybe made it worse, is appalling. The GDP was 103.6 billion in 1929 at the start of the Great Depression under Herbert Hoover. It dropped 12% to 91.2 in 1930 (under Hoover). It dropped another 16% to 76.5 in 1932 (under Hoover). It dropped another 23% to 58.7 in 1932 (under Hoover). It dropped only 4% in 1933 after Roosevelt finally took over and stopped the crisis with emergency measures. His first 100 days saw a whirlwind of economic relief. The GDP then rose a staggering 17% to 66.0 billion in 1934 (under FDR)! It rose another 11% to 73.3 in 1935 (under FDR). It rose another 14% to 83.8 in 1936 (under FDR). It rose another 10% to 91.9 in 1937 (under FDR). These are good numbers. The U.S. was out of a depression by 1937 and in only a recession. FDR also brought relief to the suffering through relief programs. The growth of personal income (money in the hands of consumers after taxes) is almost identical to GDP, which is quote impressive compared to any president's record. I urge you to seek out the economic statistics and make the comparison yourself. One of many great Roosevelt achievements was to reverse the complete banking collapse under Hoover. If you look at a GDP chart, you will see a sharp drop in GDP (and personal income) over several years when Hoover was president. Then you will see a sharp rise in GDP (and personal income) after Roosevelt took office - a remarkable record. If you were to count the jobs created by temporary workfare programs, unemployed dropped to 5% (although this type of measure is not correct). GDP Chart showing staggering growth after FDR's 1933 election: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gdp20-40.jpg <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gdp20-40.jpg> Employment Chart showing massive employment growth during FDR's presidency beginning right after he was elected: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Employment_Graph_-_1920_to_1940.svg <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Employment_Graph_-_1920_to_1940.sv\ g> Roosevelt did make one mistake after this. He caved in to the conservatives in Congress (and his treasury secretary) and presented a balanced budget, cutting stimulus spending. (Roosevelt was a fiscal conservative before the Great Depression and also wanted to balance the budget). Roosevelt was also worried that inflation would ensue if GDP grew too fast, which it was. GDP growth was tremendous. The result is that the economy contracted 6% to 86.1 billion in 1938. The recovery slipped. [SEE CHART ABOVE] After FDR reversed his conservative budget mistake and returned to his old budget, the GDP rose again. It rose 7% to 92.2 billion in 1939. It rose 10% to 101.4 billion in 1940, which is almost where it was at the start of the Great Depression. The other minor mistake he made was that the deficit spending was very small by recent standards and too mild to pull the country fully out of recession. (Reagan learned from this mistake and massively deficit spent the U.S. out of recession in 1982). Around 1940 Congress and FDR finally really ramped up the GDP by spending massively. Congress passed a massive tax increase (much on the rich) and massively deficit spent, pumping the money into the economy through massive military spending for World War II. The GDP DOUBLED in just three years! Boom! The nation was at full employment, and then some. Women and other people not working were called into the workforce to meet the demand for workers. The problem then was inflation. So the government enforced strict price controls. This was not a desirable thing to do, but it needed to be done to win the war by running the war industry at full steam. GDP was 210.9 billion by 1944, more than double what it was when the Great Depression began in 1929. > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Mike Dixon mdixon.6569@ wrote: > > > > Ummm John... just now figurin' this out? > > > > > > > > > > ________________________________ > > From: John jr_esq@ > > To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com > > Sent: Tue, July 13, 2010 3:00:17 PM > > Subject: [FairfieldLife] US Federal Deficit Tops One Trillion Dollars > > > > Â > > Both major parties are to blame for this financial fiasco. In the end, we as > > taxpayers will pay for this huge bill. If not, future generations of Americans > > will pay for it if the country is still existing by then. > > > > http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100713/ap_on_bi_ge/us_budget_deficit > > >
