ACTION

harding (3)

Rajjpuut's Folly: Rasmussen Poll Government Caused, Lengthened Great Depression

Posted by Bob VanDeHey on February 11, 2011 at 4:28am

 

 

Americans Now Learning Real History,

Might NOT Have to Repeat Ill-Effects
 

A recent Rasmussen Reports Survey seems to show that Americans are starting to understand that the country was NOT rescued from the Great Depression by government spending and government policies (a.k.a. interference in the free markets), but rather that the government actually cost the nation millions of  jobs, intensified a normal recession with its increased spending, creating and lengthening the depression and eventually turning it into the “Great Depression.” The lesson, however, is not necessarily transferring into a greater understanding of today’s economics . . . .

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/general_business/february_2011/43_say_government_policy_mistakes_created_great_depression_of_1930s_26_disagree

 

According to the Rasmussen survey, 43% now say that government policy mistakes created the Great Depression of the ‘30s; while only 26% disagree and 31% say they are unsure. Americans, today however, are still greatly confused about the cause of the financial meltdown which, they think, began about October, 2007. More on that later . . . .

Despite the Rasmussen poll results, thanks to two and a half generations of revisionist history ,today far too many Americans still believe that Herbert Hoover was  a) a conservative rather than a progressive  b) that greedy Wall Street created the Great Depression c) that Hoover’s administration spent almost nothing fighting the economic problems d) that government spending can create jobs in the private sector e) that in 1932 Franklin Delano Roosevelt campaigned for president against Hoover’s “conservativism” f) that FDR did virtually everything entirely different than Hoover and g) that FDR saved the country from the Great Depression. Let’s quickly put those lies to rest before dealing with today’s situation, eh?

Since progressivism (we must ‘progress’ beyond the out-dated and seriously flawed U.S. Constitution if we are ever to make ‘progress’ toward an earthly socialist or even Marxist Utopia) first became a serious undercurrent in American Politics in the 1890’s only once in the following 120 years has a serious economic downturn been handled by pure conservative restraint . . . and no, Ronald Reagan was NOT president when that happened (Reagan actually increased government spending while cutting taxes extra-severely and created some whopping deficits in the process of also creating twenty million jobs). 

Teddy Roosevelt was our first progressive president. You’ll remember that his “Bull Moose Party” was actually a third party officially known as, wait for it:  the “Progressive Party.” Teddy certainly had done a lot of questionable and presumably out-and-out unconstitutional things earlier when he was a Republican president, luckily most of them worked out pretty well for the nation.  Perhaps a Progressive president once every century or so wouldn’t be a bad thing, but certainly no more often?

Our first ultra-progressive president, Woodrow Wilson, however, was another story. Besides giving us the Federal Reserve Banking system and the income tax (still called today: “progressive” income tax), Wilson was a great propagandist who ran for a second term under the slogan “He kept us out of War” but within a month after his March, 1916 inauguration he deliberately and unnecessarily thrust us into World War I. He was the first truly big-spending president the country had ever known . . . way, way beyond the costs of the war. When his term was winding down, we were in a serious recession much worse than the recession sparked by the 1929 collapse. When he left office in March, 1921 the country was in a full-fledged depression.Curiously, those events are generally overlooked by history. People in the know, however, speak of “The Invisible Depression” or of the “Not-so-Great Depression.” Why was the Invisible Depression so invisible we don’t even know about it today?

            Two things: 1) revisionist progressive historians have done everything possible to hide this quite remarkable set of events and keep us from comparing it to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s approach while creating an enormous myth of FDR as a savior and 2) these policies worked out as the launching pad for the World’s most expansive decade in free market history and gets lost in the shuffle while everyone writes books and novels and treatises about the “Roaring ‘20’s” instead. What actually happened was this:

            Warren G. Harding and his vice president, Calvin Coolidge took office in March, 1921 with a full-fledged economic contraction underway. The full story is available from the Cato Institute here:

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9880

but let’s sum it up briefly.  Unemployment stood 150% higher than it was a year earlier; and GDP was only 76% of 1920 levels. Harding immediately cut government spending 49%; taxes 48%; and reduced government debt 30%.   Unlike the business-bashing that Wilson, FDR, LBJ (Lyndon Johnson) and Obama are infamous for, the Harding administration did everything it could to get government out of business’ way.   In fifteen months the country was humming again and the Invisible Depression was over. When Harding died, VP, Calvin Coolidge continued the same policies saying “the business of America is business.” 

Where did Herbert Hoover come from? Hoover was a highly respected humanitarian with an engineering background that Harding installed as his Secretary of Commerce to appease certain Eastern Republican interests.  Under both Harding and Coolidge was very ineffective. Hoover promoted government intervention under the rubric "economic modernization" and tried to get Harding to dole out unemployment benefits to ease the pain of the high 1921 joblessness. Through the next eight years both presidents Harding and Coolidge largely ignored Hoover. 

Hoover was, in short a progressive . . .   Some people are aware of that but here’s what most don’t know. At the end of World War II, Hoover’s humanitarianism including involvement in a program akin to the Marshall Program after World War II which benefitted defeated Germany and the Bolsheviks in Russia. Hoover was so influential and well respected that the New York Times named him “One of the ten most important living Americans. Woodrow Wilson considered Hoover “my ideal successor,” Democratic leaders looked upon Hoover as a strong presidential candidate and FDR said, “There could be none finer.”    Hoover, who up to then was a-political, said that because of his childhood memories, he had no interest in being a Democrat (supposedly the only Democrat in his home city was “the town drunk) and ignored Democratic overtures.   Hoover decided he’d become a Republican and announced his candidacy for president but couldn’t get much Republican support although he did finish 2nd in the 1920 California Primary.   Despite the gridlock at the RNC Convention that year, Hoover’s name was never seriously discussed and Harding became a popular compromise candidate and he won the nomination on the 10th ballot.

After the 1920 Republican -- to appease influential Republicans on both coasts -- Harding installed Hoover as his Secretary of Commerce. Hoover’s only real contributions during his stint as Commerce Secretary were some important traffic safety (embracing motor vehicle standards, rules of the road, and urban traffic control) innovations. Nevertheless, he sought to expand the Commerce Secretary domain in every possible way. He became known for trying to take over parts of other cabinets so much so that the joke was that Hoover was "the Secretary of Commerce... and Under-Secretary of Everything Else” and Coolidge called him “Wonder-boy.” 

            After the combined Harding-Coolidge administration ended in 1928, Hoover again ran for president. As soon as he was elected in 1928, he set about making the government much bigger. His biggest moves began right after his inauguration and including implementing a wide series of farm programs and a much-criticized huge tariff increase.   A self-described “Progressive” and “Reformer,” Hoover saw the presidency as a vehicle for improving the conditions of all Americans by regulation and by getting government involved encouraging of volunteerism. Long before entering politics, he had denounced laissez-faire thinking.  As Commerce Secretary, he had taken an active pro-regulation stance. As President, he helped push expensive and interventionist tariff and farm subsidy bills through Congress. Hoover also increased taxes and increased the federal budget 50% (for comparison Barack Obama so far has only increased the budget 41%). It’s obvious that the real Hoover was nothing like the do-nothing Hoover that Progressive historians have insisted he was.  

Just as they did back then, the left (the progressives of today’s  Democratic Party) is now seeking to blame the current economic crisis on a conspiracy that is an inversion of the actual facts. By the way, back in 1932 FDR and his first VP-to-be called Hoover a “socialist” and promised to use Harding’s methods to regain prosperity . . . that is FDR promised to pay down debt; slash taxes; and slash government spending. Instead he actually raised the budget 100% above Hoover’s last budget; confiscated the nation’s gold and in other ways undermined the recovery so badly that only the nation’s entry into World War II nine years later got us out of the depression.

Most Americans have no idea about the facts you’ve just read and their opinions about government’s ability to create jobs in the private sector by increased spending are largely based upon the “Savior myth” of FDR as the man who heroically saved us from the Great Depression. 

When it comes to today’s problems and today’s myths the infamous Obama-car-in-the-ditch myth (blaming all our woes on conservatives and the free markets) tops them all.   The truth, however, is:

George W. Bush saw that ACORN, the progressives, big spenders, and Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were deliberately pushing the car (our economy) toward a 500-foot cliff. He jumped into the front seat, grabbed the steering wheel and slammed on the brakes . . . guiding it into the nearest friendly ditch.        
   
To prove this surprising assertion for yourself: you’ll need a little education:
 
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/
groupProfile.asp?grpid=7522http://www.teapartypatriots.org/BlogPostView.aspx?id=0b1f6f49-f530-4d42-965b-7c0252850aa4
 
           That our current president was an ACORN lawyer and community organizer deliberately bankrupting our country as part of Cloward-Piven Strategy using Jimmy Carter’s 1977 Community Reinvestment Act (CRA ’77) who has the gall to repeatedly tell the car-in-the-ditch story is one of the most shocking hypocrisies imaginable.

The fact that Frances Fox Piven is today still openly calling for bloody revolution and urging the poor and unemployed to “use their anger” and begin the Marxist “revolution” while the lame-stream, mainstream media is accusing the TEA Party of hate-mongering and ignoring Piven is the greatest possible journalistic malfeasance.

The fact that George W. Bush’s administration recognized the problem as early as January, 2005 and sought to repeal the horrific CRA ’77 laws but the vote was defeated. And that Bush made at least 19 separate speeches on the matter and continued to strive for elimination of CRA ’77 right up until finally in July, 2007 (30 months later) when a much weaker law was passed has not been allowed as part of the history of the meltdown even though Obama’s Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in August, 2010 credited Bush with preventing an absolute collapse of our financial system and with preventing total disintegration of the housing market again reflects poorly on the so-called journalistic “profession.” The “watchdogs of the Republic” have turned on us . . . this is the biggest story of the last half of the 20th and of the first decade of the 21st Century and naturally, it’ll never be reported by the present generation of mainstream journalists . . . .

 

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

           

 
Read more…

Rajjpuut's Folly: Myth vs. Truth, Not Knowing History, We're Poised to Repeat

Posted by Bob VanDeHey on August 10, 2010 at 9:37am



http://www.swifteconomics.com/2009/08/03/if-only-barack-hoover-obama-was-barack-harding-obama/

Boobus Americanus Understanding Little
Believes History’s Biggest Lies,
Do We Need a Negative Stimulus Package?
The great cynical journalist H.L. Mencken often talked about that utterly strange creature he called “Boobus Americanus.” Mencken would be greatly heartened to know that in this era of “endangered species” Boobus Americanus has multiplied twenty-fold thanks to cross-breeding with Couch-us Potat-us Americanus and Sitcomus Addictus. Here are four great myths from the 20th Century spread by Progressive historians (“we must progress beyond the outdated ill-conceived Constitution”) and Progressive politicians . . . myths that Boobus Americanus believes with all his heart and soul.
I. Progressive Woodrow Wilson was one of our greatest presidents
II. Warren G. Harding was one of the worst presidents and a crook
III. Herbert Hoover, who did nothing to head off the Great Depression, was a conservative who “fiddled like Nero while Rome burned.”
IV. Progressive Franklin Delano Roosevelt was our greatest president and he saved us from the Great Depression.
Here are the facts:
A. Democrat Progressive Woodrow Wilson was, among other failings, a racist who premiered D.W. Griffiths’ racist classic “Birth of a Nation” in the White House and instigated segregation in government hiring from the White House. He was also our first true tax-and-spend President. He left behind a much worse recession than G.W. Bush did. He also wrote a history of America that called into question virtually everything noble about the country and the founding fathers. He was definitely a progressive and tried to change history to move things more along the progressive path with much greater government size and control of our lives. As Wilson’s last year, 1920, ticked away the economic situation was grim . . . unemployment had jumped from 4% to 12% and GDP dipped 17%. It would get worse.
B. Things got so bad that new president Warren G. Harding’s Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover (falsely characterized as a do-nothing laissez-faire conservative) urged Harding to consider a huge array of interventions in order to turn the economy around. Harding ignored Hoover and calmly paid down the national debt by 33%.
Harding facing a GDP drop of about 25% because of Wilson’s policies, also cut taxes and spending both between 45%-49% and the recesssion became known as the “Invisible Depression” because it ended within 15 months. Indeed within six months signs of recovery were already visible. In 1922, unemployment was back to 6.7% and had dropped to 2.4% by 1923. His vice president Calvin Coolidge continued Harding’s policies and the resulting “Roaring 20’s” was the single most prosperous decade in American history as the standard of living rose dramatically. For the first time Americans in large numbers owned automobiles, indoor plumbing, electric lighting, and appliances like the ice box and radio and took yearly vacations. The Teapot Dome scandal that’s been blamed on Harding by the Progressive historians occurred after his death and was created by fraudulent dealings initiated by his Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall.
C. Hoover, who replaced Coolidge in 1928, was a Republican Progressive and up until FDR was the most interfering president in American History. Almost as soon as he took office he abandoned the business friendly policies of Harding and Coolidge and jumped in to interfere in agriculture and business. To be specific:
Hoover . . . .
1) increased taxes on top wage earners from 25% to 63%
2) increased government spending by 47%
3) ran a deficit of 4.5% of GDP
4) against the wishes of over 1000 economists, he signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, effectively shutting down international trade
5) established the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to make loans to the state governments
6) appropriated money for public works construction (Hoover Dam among others)
7) met with major industry leaders and put significant pressure on them to maintain wages at current levels, despite the amount of money in the economy falling by one-third. This led, predictably, to massive unemployment thanks to those first wage controls in American history.
8) the myth or misconception of Hoover’s non-interference gets so absurd it’s almost unbelievable. The truth is diametrically opposed to that myth, for example, during the 1932 campaign, Franklin Roosevelt’s first vice president, John Garner, accused Herbert Hoover of “leading the country down the path of socialism.” Furthermore, FDR brain-truster, Rexford Tugwell admitted that, “most of what (Hoover) began would be taken over by Roosevelt and renamed the “New Deal.”
D. Progressive Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt campaigned against virtually everything Hoover did. He promised to return to the policies of Harding and Coolidge (low taxes, low spending and non-interference), but once elected continued Hardings policies with a vengeance. Higher taxes, much higher spending. He also confiscated gold and then soon changed the exchange rate from $21.76 per ounce of gold to $35 per ounce, effectively robbing all savers and investors of 61% of the value of their holdings. FDR made even Hoover’s interference look like penny-ante stuff . . . among other things he created 40 brand new federal agencies. Far from saving the country from the depression, he and his policies turned a little ‘d’ depression into the Great Depression which the rest of the world suffering a little ‘d’ depression avoided. In fact, except for the outbreak of World War II, almost nine years after he was first elected, the Great Depression showed no signs of ceasing under FDR.
E. Just for comparison, Barack Obama is making Hoover and Roosevelt both look like pikers. Imagine this, in just one law (Obamacare), Obama has created more than 385 brand new government agencies about ten times what FDR did in 12+ years . . . in just one law. And, of course, like Hoover and FDR, Obama is raising taxes, raising spending, raising deficits, and raising the national debt while doing nothing about unemployment.
So what’s to be learned now that real history’s been unearthed? Well, the very first time (under Hoover and FDR) that government involved itself seriously in intervening to stop an economic downturn . . . just happens to coincide with the onset of the greatest downturn of all . . . almost as if government interference made things much worse, do you think? In comparison Harding 12 years earlier did what any sensible family or business would do in hard times . . . took in the belt a few extra notches. According to the Cato Institute:
“Harding inherited (Woodrow) Wilson’s mess—in particular, a post–World War I depression that was almost as severe, from peak to trough, as the Great Contraction from 1929 to 1933 that FDR would later inherit. The estimated gross national product plunged 24 percent from $91.5 billion in 1920 to $69.6 billion in 1921. The number of unemployed people jumped from 2.1 million to 4.9 million.”
So what did Harding do? He cut government spending from $6.3 billion in 1920, to $5 billion in 1921, and then again to $3.2 billion in 1922. This would amount to a negative stimulus package! Income taxes were left as is and corporate taxes were cut. There was no push for new regulations and the Federal Reserve did nothing.
What was the result of Harding’s negative stimulus package? By 1922, unemployment was down to 6.7% and the Roaring Twenties had begun. The economy set new production records year after year until the infamous Black Tuesday on October 29th, 1929 created by Hoover’s profligate policies.
Of course the Progressive historians have altered the facts significantly and made FDR a hero and Harding a villain. And befuddled by their own histories, they’ve made all the wrong conclusions over and over and over again and the country enamored of the false-legacy of FDR has eagerly joined them . . . .
Ya’ll live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
My friend Tish Gance forwarded me the following which explains perfectly how false history comes to dominate our reality . . . .

Monkeys --

Start with a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string

and place a set of stairs under it.

Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana.

As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all the other monkeys with cold water.

After a while another monkey makes the attempt with same result, all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water.

Pretty soon when another Monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.

Now, put the cold water away. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one.

The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs.

To his shock, all of the other monkeys beat the snot out of him. After another attempt and attack,

he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs he will be assaulted.

Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one.

The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked.

The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm.

Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth.

Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs he is attacked.

Most of the monkeys that are beating him up have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs

OR even why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey. Finally, after replacing all of the

original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water.

Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana.

Why not?

Because as far as they know, that is the way it has always been done around here.

And that, my fellow monkeys, is how Congress operates -

And precisely why we need to REPLACE all the original monkeys this November

Read more…

Rajjpuut's Folly: Commonsense vs. Constitution-Trashers and Law-Abusers

Posted by Bob VanDeHey on April 17, 2010 at 2:56pm

Rajjpuut’s guessing at least 60% of Americans (the vast UNinformed) might have felt great relief seeing the recent Newsweek cover saying “America’s Back!” (Hopefully, they didn’t waste their needed funds actually buying that rag.) The two best statistics in Newsweek’s favor are the stock market’s year-long climb and this month’s upswing in housing construction. You, however, as a reader of Rajjpuut's Folly, know that overall the real picture is not that rosy: unemployment is quite high; foreclosures and bank failures are rampant; deficits and national debt are growing semi-geometrically; two of the three American auto companies despite $100+ billion in handouts have NOT turned-around significantly; government size and scope are growing to dangerous liberty-endangering proportions; a new entitlement program Obamacare threatens to put the final nail in the coffin of American capitalism; unions are not interested in cooperating with management to return the nation’s products to competitive-price desirability; unions are not cooperating with states to help the states meet their own financial disasters; and most importantly, we have short-sightedly failed to cut taxes or decrease government spending. How far are we from financial Armageddon? Are we already there?

In actuality, we stand on the cusp of the disintegration of the American Republic as we’ve known it since 1776, the finest experiment in freedom and responsibility ever seen on this earth. For the first time in our history, one generation looks to pass on far less than it inherited from its American predecessors. The politicians have sold away our children's and grandchilren's future. The fiscal-cataclysm that brought us to this point, rather than abating still intensifies creating great distress for our citizens. This distress and the problems leading us to this point have been deliberately shrouded in mystery and dissembled (lied) about for the protection of those who caused the problem, thus the problems persist and intensify rather than improving. Rather than getting to the matter of in depth individual and collective guilt, let’s take a few brief paragraphs and allude to two different approaches to fiscal-downturns: the well-known “New Deal” and the virtually never seriously discussed “Get Government out of the Way” approach a.k.a. the Warren G. Harding “Invisible Depression Approach” . . . .

In 1920 the nation began suffering “the Unknown Depression” a.k.a. “the Invisible Depression,” one of countless such financial panics that the nation has endured in its history. This panic might have been part of the normal ebb and flow of the economy, those normal ups and downs found in all free markets. However, the situation was greatly compounded and exacerbated by the problems created by the end of the economic boom upon many industries and for the American farmer by World War I’s end and the return of the troops (jobless now) to American shores, and the difficulties repaying loans owed America by many nations almost ruined by the war, and the de-stabilizing effect of the so-called Spanish Flu pandemic which began in and around Ft. Riley, Kansas and killed at least 800,000 Americans and up to 100 million people worldwide. On the government front, President Woodrow Wilson was sickly and his wife actually ran much of the government continuing his progressive policies (feeling that the U.S. Constitution is a flawed and thus an insufficient instrument for dealing with modernity and is therefore, something which must be “progressed” beyond by current politicians so much wiser than the founding fathers). Wilson was replaced in 1921 by Warren G. Harding, a do-nothing president more excited by chasing White House staff women into closets than governing and certainly totally UNinterested in creating any grandiose government initiatives. Harding became known, somewhat unfairly it seems although the President is ultimately responsible for what happens on his watch, for the Teapot Dome Scandal (that emerged after his death) and little else. He probably should be remembered as “the nation’s greatest depression fighter.”

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig4/powell-jim4.html

So as not to interrupt his Clinton-like oval office carousing, Harding largely kept his hands off the government making almost no serious expansions whatsoever in the structure or functioning of it. There was definitely a depression going on: gross national product plunged 24% from $91.5 billion in 1920 to $69.6 billion in 1921. The number of unemployed people jumped 133% from 2.1 million in 1920 to 4.9 million in 1921. Harding did make three changes, however. The first two changes were seemingly too small to actually matter, but they were important. The last change was huge and utterly inspired:

A. Wilson had (like Obama today) stopped all direct press conferences. Harding restored them twice a week and enjoyed personally dealing with the press’ questions. And the word historically is that he never dodged a question but sometimes clarified things later or asked for cabinet input or said “That’s one I don’t know, but I’ll find out, boys!”

B. Harding, from the first, explained to the press and to the people how the economy worked and constantly decried the negative effects of high taxes, government waste and government spending and interference (what Rajjpuut calls GSBs and GIBs – government spending and government interference boondoggles) on the nation’s productivity and economic health. Harding also championed a completely non-interventionist foreign policy as the best hope for peace. This was completely opposite to Wilson’s approaches. Wilson, as a progressive, had greatly multiplied the size and scope of government during his two terms even before the country entered WWI in 1917. He had promised to keep the nation out of war but as soon as he'd won re-election deliberately steered us into it; and then he'd gone gallivanting around Europe etc. trying to sell the world on a League of Nations (in other words Wilson was almost as huge an “interventionist” as Herbert Hoover, FDR and Obama).

C. Harding’s third change was the single largest lesson in economic history for America and its leaders in business and government ( a change which history books totally ignore and no one, therefore, learns from) . . . he slashed the national government to the bone! Tax cuts and spending cuts were huge. 1920’s $6.3 billion budget dropped to $3.2 billion in 1922 Harding’s first-full year controlling it.

Harding slashed taxes on corporate profits and “excess profits” dramatically as well. He established the General Accounting Office to provide oversight on government spending and waste and he stuck by his guns despite (his Secretary of Commerce) Herbert Hoover’s unceasing urging to help** the unemployed. The low point for federal taxes was reached in 1924. Federal spending reached its low in 1925. The federal government paid off debt, which had been $24.2 billion in 1920, and debt continued to decline and then small surpluses accumulated until 1930. The rebound was swift and almost painless and it ignited the single-most prosperous years in history “the Roaring Twenties” which Hoover’s progressive policies brought to an end and FDR’s ultra-progressivism expanded into a twelve-year depression only alleviated by putting 16 million men to work in the armed forces after Pearl Harbor.

Overall federal taxes decreased almost 40% in less than two years under Harding. As a result, wealth for private citizens increased tremendously. They came for the first time in large numbers to own automobiles, ice boxes and refrigerators, radios and often their own homes. Most rural citizens gained indoor plumbing and electric lighting for the first time. America for the first time became the haven for the world’s investors. The gold-backed U.S. dollar became the world’s default currency or international 'reserve' currency. Later, the true nature of progressive policies (a.k.a. theft) became obvious to our citizens and the world’s investors who would suffer the theft of much of the dollar’s value when FDR confiscated the nation’s gold and changed the exchange rate from $20.76 per ounce to $35 an ounce in an overnight inflation of 41%.

Harding suffered a stroke and died in early August, 1923, the sins of some of his cabinet were supposedly part of his legacy according to progressive historians. His real legacy is, however, that his Vice President (Calvin Coolidge) adopted precisely identical economic policies and the country thrived as never before until Silent Cal chose “not to run” in 1928 and the nation elected Republican progressive Hoover into office. Harding’s 18-month Depression compared to Hoover’s and Roosevelt’s dozen-year malaise stand as stark reminders of the benefits of government “staying out of the way.” Nevertheless, FDR got all the good press and Harding all the bad and the wrong model has been adopted today by FDR-admiring Barak Obama. Let us return to our present economic problem and its causes . . . but first a quick review . . . How exactly did Harding engineer such a stupendous turn-around? In a sentence: he cut government spending by almost 50% and cut taxes by 40% . . . our own predicament is so much worse that in a 21st Century Harding’s place, Rajjpuut would advocate a ten-year plan to maintain spending cuts of 60% and decrease taxes by 45%. Back to 2010 . . . .

Presumably, by now the full-truth about our present financial crisis clearly should have been 100% revealed to the people/voters and the congress and the world by an ever vigilant and conscientious press and honest able economists. However, the ever vigilant conscientious press . . . apparently no longer exists. However, honest and able economists are in short supply . . . certainly those of the Keynesian school which advocate inflation as a viable tool of mega- (and also totalitarian) government have proved themselves repeatedly neither honest nor able. The truth is NOT being revealed . . . why? The truth is not being revealed because it is in the IRrational best interests of the parties involved to keep that truth hidden. Ultimately the voters and the press bear a huge and enduring share of the blame and each would like to point the finger elsewhere. Most of the voters don’t want to be pushed away from their couch-potatoism and so they deny responsibility. The incredible failures of the press to not only NOT alert the public but to actually and willfully hide the truth from the public and present a slanted and self-interested viewpoint clearly verges on the brink of criminal in many cases with our most prestigious and honored newspapers, in particular bearing the largest responsibility (perhaps why they're all going as bankrupt in financial matters as they are in journalistic ones?). But ultimately, the sins of the press and of the voters pale in comparison to those of the politicians and, in particular to the culpability of the Constitution-Trashers and law-abusing legislators.

Rajjpuut counts a full eighteen guilty political groups, including to mention a few: President G.W. Bush and Republicans and Democrats in congress who passed Medicare D; President Obama and other lawyers working for ACORN at forcing banks into clearly unwise housing loans with virtually no chance of ever being paid off; the three Democratic congresses responsible for passing Carter’s 1977 Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) of 1977, the forced mortgage-guarantee expansion to Freddie and Fannie in 1992; and the Clinton 1998 mortgage-guarantee act of 1998, which put the whole process on steroids; and most importantly of all the left-wing think tanks which revered Saul Alinsky’s infamous book “Rules for Radicals." Even before the Cloward-Piven Strategy expanded Alinsky's evil, however, we needed no government-overthrowers to do us in. Today Social Security, Medicare and the federal government side of Medicaid have left us with almost $108 TRillion in unfunded debt and obligations . . . $108 TRillion. How did that happen?
For all Rajjpuut's denigration of FDR, it must be said that SSI (Social Security Insurance) was probably a good idea. But as soon as it was created and ever since . . . the law-abusers (for instance ACORN abused mortgage guarantee laws to get expensive housing for people without jobs; without ID; and even illegal aliens) went to work. Here is a little known fact that paints social security in a completely different light: although, the average life span of men in those days (1935) was roughly 54 years and women lived to roughly 58, the insurance features of SSI kicked in many years after most men and women could be expected to already be dead, in other words it insured that in old age, if you had a relatively extra-long life you were taken care of. Clearly the whole purpose of the original law has been willfully subverted by the Congresses and Presidents that followed. And SSI, just like Medicare and Medicaid are supposed to be "set-asides" like a savings account. The law-abusers have never set aside that money but have confiscated it almost from the start and passed laws with the money confiscated to spend it on other things and NOT just once-in-a lifetime things but on growing more government. In other words, the set asides have triply-fueled the massive growth of government since 1934 via establishment of the bureaucracies themselves; spending the set-aside money; and the new federal programs created and ongoing with the set-aside money now budgeted in.

It is these anti-American Constitution Trashers and law-abusers that more than any other group that have brought us to this financial precipice. Today they are still alive in all the various ACORN clones fully-expecting that Obama’s bill for “reforming” American financial institutions will refund them . . . . Their sordid history should be known by every American but our left-aligned press has willfully refused to investigate the ACORN EVIL history and purposes or the history of the think tanks aiming to overthrow our government. It is these left-wing think tanks that latched onto the “greatness” of Alinsky and continued “perfecting” their vile thinking and processes with the Cloward-Piven Strategy which they used deliberately and purposefully (and bragged about their planning and using) along with their NWRO (National Welfare Relief Organization) they created to bankrupt New York City by 1975 and only missed by a hair of bankrupting the entire state of New York. Since 1977, they have been using the poor as unwitting footsoldiers in their attempt to bring down America and impose their dreary revolution upon us. Now under Obama, blessed by the ACORN-created sub-prime lending crisis . . . their goal is in view. Heaven will never forgive us, should we allow them to succeed.

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

** when told of a natural disaster in Texas, Harding refused to get involved and vetoed a $50,000 disaster relief bill (big money in those days), saying the bill would just “kill people’s normal charitable instincts." Sure enough state and local individuals and agencies raised over $200,000 to help the stricken area.

Read more…