US unemployment goes down .4%....who cares.

[lomiller]

There weren't nearly as many under Bush.

First you complain they are not counted now you claim to know exactly how many there are. Seems very “convenient”...

 

[TraneWreck]

And it;s pretty apparent that your solution is for the US to turn very sharply to the left and become a European style "Social Democracy" which would mean not just going back to a Pre Raegan level of government control, but going far beyond what any Democratic Administration in history has seriously advocated. Good luck with that.......

The first FDR administration is the model to follow.

The trend of modern nations is to move towards that European socialism. We will get there eventually. The sooner, the better, and if it wasn't for our country's unique problems with racism, we likely would be there already.

 

[BeAChooser]

The first FDR administration is the model to follow.

Here's what FDR's Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, said eight years after the start of the New Deal: "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. ... I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started .... and an enormous debt to boot!".

 

[BeAChooser]

Anyone think this will help the economy and solve the unemployment problem?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...43616.html?mod=WSJ_Election_LEFTSecondStories

FEBRUARY 8, 2011


… snip …

President Barack Obama's budget proposal is expected to give states a way to collect more payroll taxes from businesses, in an effort to replenish the unemployment-insurance program. … snip …

The proposal would aim to restock strained state unemployment-insurance trust funds by raising the amount of wages on which companies must pay unemployment taxes to $15,000, more than double the $7,000 in place since 1983.

 

[Kthulhut Fhtagn]

Here's what FDR's Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, said eight years after the start of the New Deal: "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. ... I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started .... and an enormous debt to boot!".

I've noticed in debate that you like to provide a large number of people's personal opinions on issues, but very little actual argument.

 

[lomiller]

Here's what FDR's Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, said eight years after the start of the New Deal: "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work.

8 years after the start of the New Deal would have been smack in WWII

 

[Malerin]

Here's what FDR's Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, said eight years after the start of the New Deal: "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. ... I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started .... and an enormous debt to boot!".

I've noticed in debate that you like to provide a large number of people's personal opinions on issues, but very little actual argument.

FDR's eight-year Secretary of the Treasury wasn't qualified to talk about the economic success of the New Deal? You're kidding, right?

 

[Kthulhut Fhtagn]

FDR's eight-year Secretary of the Treasury wasn't qualified to talk about the economic success of the New Deal? You're kidding, right?

I'll admit I know next to nothing about the man, let alone his qualifications. But what I am saying is that providing a quote from the Secretary of the Treasury isn't an argument. No more than the individuals claiming Darwin denounced the Origin of Species is an argument against the validity of evolution.

 

[TraneWreck]

FDR's eight-year Secretary of the Treasury wasn't qualified to talk about the economic success of the New Deal? You're kidding, right?

Remember, during FDR's first administration the recovery was impressive. The economy rebounded rapidly. In order to be reelected, however, FDR caved to pressure from the austerity crowd (dumbassery being a consistent, powerful force in politics). This lead to a severe double-dip recession that didn't recover until WWII.

The Secretary was one of those pushing for cutbacks and budget balancing. History has proven him really, really wrong.

 

[lomiller]

I'll admit I know next to nothing about the man, let alone his qualifications. But what I am saying is that providing a quote from the Secretary of the Treasury isn't an argument. No more than the individuals claiming Darwin denounced the Origin of Species is an argument against the validity of evolution.

Worse. In this case even if it’s real the whole quote is being misrepresented. FDR took office in 1933, 8 years in specified in the description would put make it 1941 when the US economy was booming due to WWII which started in 1939.

My money however is on the quote being fake. Unemployment was 25% when FDR took office, by the time the New Deal expired in 1937 it was 10%. When the “cut the deficit” crowd got their way in 1937 US unemployment went back up to 15% dropped rapidly after WWII broke out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Employment_Graph_-_1920_to_1940.svg

 

[A'isha]

The Morgenthau quote is real. However, as is typical for BAC, he's only quoted from right-wing sources. In this case, the elided version he posted matches the version in Burton Folsom's 2008 book "New Deal or Raw Deal? How FDR's Economic Legacy Has Damaged America". Folsom claimed that the statement was made during testimony before the Congressional Ways and Means Committee.

In reality, it was said at a private meeting between Morgenthau and the chairman of that committee, Robert Doughton, that Morgenthau later recounted in his diary on May 9, 1939. John Morton Blum, in his 1965 book "From The Morgenthau Diaries - Years of Urgency 1938-1941" quotes a much fuller version:

We have tried spending money. We are spending more money than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just none interest, and if I am wrong . . . somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job, I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. . . . We have said we would give everybody a job that wanted it. We have never taken care of the people . . . . there are four million that don't have that much income. We have never done anything for them . . . We have never begun to tax the people in this country the way they should be . . . . People who have it should pay. . . . It's never a good year to have a tax bill, but I think it's a darn good year to begin to balance the budget. . . . the biggest deterrent of all . . . is that the country does not know when the end is in sight and this unbalancing of the budget . . . that's what frightens people. I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started . . . . And an enormous debt to boot!

The bolded parts weren't in Folsom's quote (and thus, not in BAC's). I somehow doubt that BAC is as favorably inclined towards the parts of Morgenthau's statement where he says the government should give a job to everybody who wanted one, or that when it comes to taxes that they haven't taxed the people they way they should be and that "people who have it should pay."

It's especially disingenuous on Folsom's part, since he cites Blum for the Morgenthau quote, not the diaries directly.

 

[BeAChooser]

8 years after the start of the New Deal would have been smack in WWII

Henry Morgenthau said what I quoted on May 9, 1939, while appearing before democrats of the House Ways and Means Committee (http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=30331 ). That date would not put it "smack in WWII" since the Nazis invade Poland in September of 1939. Why is it that liberals/democrats/socialists have no sense of history?

 

[A'isha]

Henry Morgenthau said what I quoted on May 9, 1939, while appearing before democrats of the House Ways and Means Committee (http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=30331 ).

No he didn't. He did it in private while complaining to his buddy, the chairman of the committee, and then wrote about the private meeting in his diary.

 

[drkitten]

No he didn't. He did it in private while complaining to his buddy, the chairman of the committee, and then wrote about the private meeting in his diary.

Goodness me, did you just catch BAC in a mistake of fact?

 

[A'isha]

Goodness me, did you just catch BAC in a mistake of fact?

That's what happens when you rely on biased single sources. That article in Human Events (which proudly advertises itself as "Leading Conservative Media since 1944") also didn't do its own research, instead regurgitating the same quote from Folsom's book, making for an endless chain of right-leaning sources all citing each other, with none of them bothering to actually check on things for themselves.

And, as I noted above, it's especially egregious since Folsom's book falsely represents the citation he claims to have gotten from Blum's book, editing out the parts of Morgenthau's diary entry that go against the narrative of Good Conservative Economic Principles Could Have Saved Us From The Depression, as well as misrepresenting a private meeting between political friends and allies as the Treasury Secretary giving groundbreaking testimony before a Congressional Committee.

 

[TraneWreck]

That's what happens when you rely on biased single sources. That article in Human Events (which proudly advertises itself as "Leading Conservative Media since 1944") also didn't do its own research, instead regurgitating the same quote from Folsom's book, making for an endless chain of right-leaning sources all citing each other, with none of them bothering to actually check on things for themselves.

And, as I noted above, it's especially egregious since Folsom's book falsely represents the citation he claims to have gotten from Blum's book, editing out the parts of Morgenthau's diary entry that go against the narrative of Good Conservative Economic Principles Could Have Saved Us From The Depression, as well as misrepresenting a private meeting between political friends and allies as the Treasury Secretary giving groundbreaking testimony before a Congressional Committee.

And thus the reason that said poster is the lone member of JREF I can only read in quoted form...

Although, to be fair, it was more my inability to let the obvious lies slide leading to impressive time loss and lack of productivity that brought about the end of my ignore list virginity.

 

[lomiller]

Goodness me, did you just catch BAC in a mistake of fact?

Inconceivable!

 

[BeAChooser]

Remember, during FDR's first administration the recovery was impressive. The economy rebounded rapidly. In order to be reelected, however, FDR caved to pressure from the austerity crowd (dumbassery being a consistent, powerful force in politics). This lead to a severe double-dip recession that didn't recover until WWII.

You are either dishonest or blinded by your agenda. Here's what the experts say:

http://hnn.us/articles/3800.html

New Deal policies (and some Hoover-era policies predating the New Deal) systematically used the power of the state to intervene in labor markets in a manner to raise wages and labor costs, prolonging the misery of the Great Depression". They [economists Vedder and Gallaway] estimated that by 1940, unemployment was 8 percentage points higher "than it would have been in the absence of the higher payroll costs imposed by New Deal policies".

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/FDR-s-Policies-Prolonged-Depression-5409.aspx?RelNum=5409

FDR's Policies Prolonged Depression by 7 Years, UCLA Economists Calculate

http://www.usnews.com/articles/business/economy/2008/04/11/did-the-new-deal-work.html

In 1995, economist Robert Whaples of Wake Forest University published a survey of academic economists that asked them if they agreed with the statement, "Taken as a whole, government policies of the New Deal served to lengthen and deepen the Great Depression." Fifty-one percent disagreed, and 49 percent agreed.

Now keep in mind, that above was the response Whaples got from people in a discipline that on average are VERY liberal in their politics. How liberal?

http://ideas.repec.org/a/ejw/volone/2006148-179.html

AEA Ideology: Campaign Contributions of American Economic Association Members, Committee Members, Officers, Editors, Referees, Authors, and Acknowledgees

... snip ...

Association members were 5 times more likely to give to Democrats than to Republicans.

Whaples went on to say that

Yet most economists, including defenders of the New Deal, do agree that Roosevelt's policies were far from perfect. The National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, in particular, gets a lot of blame. It created the National Recovery Administration, a federal bureaucracy that limited competition in various industries by setting prices and wages above market levels. The ensuing upward pressure on the price of goods and unemployment may have turned a bad situation worse.

... snip ...

One explanation is that in addition to the harm done by the restrictions imposed by the NRA, the "soak the rich" rhetoric coming from the Roosevelt administration had a chilling effect on economic growth by making people fear for their property rights. Who knows, maybe Uncle Sam would just start wholesale confiscation of the fortunes of America's wealthy or the nationalization of industries—Americans were already observing that going on across the pond with the rise of communism in Russia and fascism in Europe. This uncertainty, along with a jump in the top federal income tax rate from 25 percent in 1931 to 79 percent in 1936, may have deterred investment.

And that's the same sort of rhethoric and tax policies that has been spewing out of the Obama administration and governing democrats. With the same result.

The fact is the unemployment rate was 4.4% when Herbert Hoover took office. And when a recession hit, his response was the same as George Bush's and Obama's was to be in 2008-9 … massive government interference in the market and massive increases in government spending. Hoover almost doubled government spending with the largest public works projects in history to that point. And by the time he left office, the result was an unemployment rate close to 25%. Stimulus spending and government interference did not work. Hoover turned a recession into a depression.

Then it was FDR's turn. Ironically, FDR campaigned in 1932 by attacking Hoover. According to http://www.mackinac.org/4026 , "During the campaign, Roosevelt blasted Hoover for spending and taxing too much, boosting the national debt, choking off trade, and putting millions on the dole. He accused the president of 'reckless and extravagant' spending, of thinking 'that we ought to center control of everything in Washington as rapidly as possible,' and of presiding over 'the greatest spending administration in peacetime in all of history.'" The Democratic Party platform (http://left.wikia.com/wiki/Democratic_Party_Platform,_1932 ) even contained this statement: "We advocate an immediate and drastic reduction of governmental expenditures" and called for "the removal of government from all fields of private enterprise except where necessary to develop public works and natural resources in the common interest."

What a pack of lies. Because as soon as FDR became President, he didn't reduce spending and taxes, but expanded on the misguided policies of Hoover. He doubled government spending yet again and push far more government intervention in the market and in people's lives than even Hoover ever contemplated. And in doing so, FDR did nothing but prolong the depression and set the stage for our country amassing staggering unfunded government liabilities decades later which would threaten it with bankruptcy. Even the left leaning Brookings Institute agreed (in a 900 page report on the impact of the New Deal's National Recovery Administratio) that "on the whole it retarded recovery."

Sure, unemployment went down to about 14% in June 1937, but it took 4 years for that to happen, and it can be forcefully argued the drop wasn't the result of massive government spending and government interference but had more to do with the Supreme Court striking down key elements of the New Deal legislation (including the National Industrial Recovery Act in July 1935 and the Agricultural Adjustment Act in July 1935 and January 1936) than anything else.

Furthermore, contrary to what you claim, the timing of unemployment then going back up to 19% in 1938 (what you call the double dip) was more than likely the result of FDR, in 1936 and early 1937, packing the court with his own people, leading to reversals of the earlier Supreme Court decisions. Because immediately after those reversals, the Dow collapsed and the unemployment rate shot back up to 19%.

And it was still over 17% in 1939, despite FDR again increasing government spending and despite even more interference in the market. The truth is that only the onset of WW2 and the enormous growth in demand for war goods finally brought unemployment under control (falling below 10% by 1941). That had NOTHING to do with the New Deal.

Now all of these facts have been posted to you and lomiller previously but you apparently just want to ignore them and continue your lies. Well I can't stop you but I can at least post the truth.

 

[BeAChooser]

My money however is on the quote being fake.

My money is on you not knowing how to use a browser.

 

[drkitten]

My money is on you not knowing how to use a browser.

Wow. BAC is dumb/blinkered enough to assert the validity of his quote even after it's been proven to be a lie.