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 Here are four great myths from the 20th Century spread by Progressive historians (“we must progress beyond the outdated ill-conceived Constitution”) and Progressive politicians .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
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