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FDR's Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression
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FDR's Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression |
Author: Jim Powell
Published: 2004-09-28 |
List price: $14.95
Our price: $10.17
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Customer comments on this selection.
 Economic History Primer for Today
Due to today's world-wide economic crisis, this book is a must read about how NOT react to the current situation. This book is a massive indictment of the FDR administration's reaction to the Great Depression. Fears of socialism, if not downright fascism, are discussed.
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br /Programs that gave the government the economic control over society hindered its recovery and prolonged the crisis. The benefits of the programs mainly served the political ambitions of those in power and of course those wanting to keep that power.
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br /Phrases heard today were heard in the 1930's, like `spread the wealth,' are used to justify the actions of the activists in power. An institutional mindset that blamed and attacked businesses and banks, and the concept of individuality as being outdated is revealed. An attempt to redefine what is patriotic is heard similiar to 'it is patriotic to play more taxes.'
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br /The primary indictment throughout the book is FDR and his big government socialist plans extended the misery of the depression, which impacted minorities more severely. Can we expect any better result today, when the government is displaying it's questionable intelligence on C-SPAN with all its questioning of experts regarding the current crisis and playing the political blame game? Both major politician parties have courted this disaster and want to blame anyone else but themselves. There is little to no difference to what is happening today then what led to the Depression of the 1930s. That is why this book should be a basic introductory primer for anyone interested in understanding some of the possibilities of the current situation. Maybe, some of these current 'geniuses' could have prevented this fiasco if their education had included this book instead of the normal hagiographic type writing about FDR and his schemes for the 1930's which most of us were exposed to in school.
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Great Book
Great Book! FDR has always been regarded as a "Great President" and liberal professors would never dare point out the failings of the New Deal. Obama should read this book and take notes. Some of his proposed policies are just as dangerous. This should be a must read for Poli Sci 101.
A Needed Reassessment of the New Deal Response to the Great Depression
~FDR's Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression~ is a fascinating look at the Great Depression, which tramples the illogic of the garden variety hagiography of the late Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The New Deal exacerbated the Great Depression and prolonged it. On the eve of World War II, unemployment stood as high as it did before the Great Depression. The non-sensical policies of Roosevelt (and Federal Reserve under his watch) was a massive deflation of currency in circulation, prime-pumping economy with government spending, and paying farmers to destroy their crops and livestock, while people were famished and the U.S. was importing those same goods as well. Powell who has offered revisionist indictments of the policies of both Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson makes the clarion case of "How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression." What makes FDR so unsavory is that his Fireside Chat persona was largely a skilled public relations campaign, and a clever bit of demagoguery, which set him apart from the failed Herbert Hoover. While FDR may have felt the pain of the common man, he set the stage for prolonging the policies that impugned him ironically. But as FDR once said, "You know, I'm a juggler, and I never let my right hand know what my left hand does. I am perfectly willing to mislead and tell untruths..."
Valuable Resource on the Great Depression
A common historical misconception is that FDR's New Deal rescued the United States from the Great Depression. However, CATO Historian Jim Powell argues that the New Deal exacerbated and elongated the Great Depression. With impressive attention to detail, Powell examines the long-term results of the New Deal and persuasively argues that they crippled the U.S. economy.
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br /In this detailed book, you will learn about the numerous programs the FDR administration brought about, including the following:
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br /* Programs that inundated private businesses with unprecedented waves of regulations, such as the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, the National Recovery Act and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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br /* Programs that redistributed wealth from producers to consumers, such as the Federal Emergency Relief Act and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation.
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br /* Programs that nationalized industries, centrally planned infrastructure or created makework projects to increase employment such as the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Public Works Administration and the Tennessee Valley Authority. Powell argues that these programs typically led to poorly planned infrastructure that was more expensive than what could have been acquired in a free market.
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br /The economic results of FDR's programs were devastating. For example, consider the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA). The price and production controls of the AAA led to perverse practices such as millions of tons of domestic oat and corn being burned while the U.S. simultaneously imported oat and corn, millions of peaches being left to rot and millions of "excess" pigs being needlessly slaughtered while lard was being imported from overseas. The extent of economic regulation under the FDR Administration reached such absurd levels, there was even a government board organized solely to control the production and pricing of milk!
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br /This book will also detail the oppressive controls on income and wages under the FDR administration. Under FDR, scores of private sector jobs were eliminated through minimum wage laws, personal income taxes hit 91% for certain brackets and it was a stated part of FDR's platform that nobody should have an annual income in excess of $25,000.
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br /Powell reveals how all of FDR's programs are based upon the fatally flawed premises of Keynesian economics, including the following:
br /* That government spending is always good for the economy, even if it is engaging in pointless ventures such as building pyramids.
br /* War is good for the economy.
br /* Gold (as a standard of currency) is a "barbarous relic" that prevents economic growth.
br /* A capitalist economy will inevitably slow to a halt without periodic bolsters from centralized planning.
br /* Consumption (i.e., the destruction of wealth) not production, drives the economy. Thus, government should redistribute wealth from those who would invest it to those who would spend it.
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br /From reading this book, you will also learn that many of FDR's earliest programs, such as the AAA and the National Recovery Act, were originally ruled as unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. Unfortunately FDR stayed in office long enough to appoint 7 of the 9 sitting supreme court justices, which eventually opened the floodgates for New Deal reforms. Thus, is the unforeseen danger of having a President serve more than two terms.
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br /Powell has done a fantastic job with this work. I am not surprised that FDR's Folly has been enthusiastically recommended by famed free market economists such as Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in free market capitalism and learning the real history of the Great Depression.
Excellent account of good intentions with bad results
The old saying "The path to hell is paved with good intentions" should be noted in any discussion of the New Deal. This was a time when academics believed that markets were naturally inefficient, and only trained experts of bureaucracy could streamline it and make it effective. We laugh at that now (after bitter experience from the past 60 years), but at the time, various forms of central planning and control were all the rage in world governments. Business was seen not as an engine of opportunity, progress, and prosperity, but a necessary evil. Businessmen of all stripes were viewed the way we view trial lawyers and used car salesmen today... inherently corrupt, to be held on a short (government) leash.
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