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FDR's 1932 campaign promised:
1. Cutting back government expenditures, and balancing budget
2. Getting rid of Hoover's "committees"
3. Sound Money
Nobody would have been elected in the US in 1932 on a platform of "big government." Hoover's policy response after the 1929 bubble burst was actually "big government": preventing companies from cutting wages; All sorts of government committees were set up to control prices and preventing them from falling. Hence massive unemployment and likewise business transactions not taking place because goods and services were prevented from being cleared through the market by the government.
Those government-industry collaborative committees were actually copied from Mussollini's "Third Way" (not Communist nor free-market), which had its adherents in the US before he joined the other well-known European central-planner in WWII, whose name can not be mentioned around here.
Contrary to his campaign promises to reverse Hoover's government intervention schemes and bailout price setting committees, FDR became an even greater interventionist than Hoover after being elected. The long-term result of such a set of policy is quite inevitable: war building and war making, just like in the home countries where those fascist policies originated.
Let's also not forget the contribution of Keynes a few years later to provide an academic cover: all the bombs made and dropped, all the crew time shooting at each other were counted as GDP/GNP by definition, based entirely on how much the government pays/waste on them. Yes, world GDP/GNP probably hit a new high when London, Moscow, Berlin and Tokyo were reduced to rubble. What does GDP/GNP have to do with real economy? not much. It's just an intellectual cover for government take-over the economy in general.
posted by 71.184.95...
, Thu, 8 Jul 2010 16:38:39, Sat, 10 Jul 2010 09:38:16
, Sat, 10 Jul 2010 10:45:44, Sat, 10 Jul 2010 09:35:22, Sat, 10 Jul 2010 13:31:41
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