Man, the more I read Ryan's post...

... the angrier I get.

I have a couple of questions I'd like answered by Ryan.

Question One: Where do you find the "promise" that the New Deal would remove or repair every facet of unhappiness that came about because of the Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression? How does that become a requirement of a successful Administration in our evaluation of FDR's Presidency? When DID FDR make those promises? Can you tell me where on his "whistle stop tours" he promised that the New Deal would deliver this result?

I ask this because I can not find even one reference to such a promise. What I keep reading is that the New Deal would bring about the Three "Rs"... relief, recovery and reform. Relief was delivered until 1935, when the last of the "dole" programs ran out of funding. Recovery was achieved in every economic index except unemployment by as early as 1936-1937, and even with the Roosevelt Recession, never went back below 1929 levels. Reform was achieved in the regulation of existing industries and institution of new programs that were to prevent another free-fall crash as we experienced in October of 1929, and most if it was implemented within the first 100 days of his first term... which is were we get the focus on the "first 100 days" by the way. Unless my understanding of history is WAY out of whack, we have NOT had another repeat of the 1929 crash at any point since.

So, if there is no promise by FDR that he would "fix everything by 23:59 on December 31, 1939, why am I expected to hold him to that requirement? Why am I WRONG for contending that he met all the requirements of delivering on the promise of the New Deal except in lower unemployment rates?

Question Two: Why do we not take into consideration the several mitigating factors that I have previously pointed out to you about the "mixed" value of traditional unemployment figures from the years between 1929 and 1941?

Factor #1: People employed with New Deal programs such as WPA, TVA, CCC, etc were NOT taken off the unemployment lists because they were employed under Federal work programs, and not by private sector industries. We know from my past posts that the TVA was employing as many as 28,000 employees per year after 1933, and the CCC was employing that many again after 1935, so we have tens of thousands of people working for a fair and reasonable annual wage that were still listed as unemployed.

Factor #2: Farmers in the Midwest and Plains States were witness to the worst drought in recorded US history, beginning in the winter of 1932 and lasting at least 6 years (more in some states). These farmers could not produce viable crops on land that was drying up and blowing away, and what they could produce was selling for less than 1/3 of its former value due to the deflated prices in the markets... but despite what Steinbeck wrote in The Grapes of Wrath, most did not leave their farms on over-loaded jalopies for the California fruit farms. They stayed on their land and did all they could to stay afloat. However, according to the US Government and the US Census Office, these families were listed as unemployed for the duration of the depression era simply because they could not find alternative employment in the private sector. It seems farmers who work a 12-hour day on their land, but still need assistance or subsidies simply didn't count as "employed".

These two factors alone could conceivably account for as many as a half a million WORKING people who remained on the unemployment lists (for reasons I do not understand and cannot defend at all). Knowing this to be a FACT, how can we assume that the actual numbers of "unemployed" people were as large as they were? How do we know that the actual unemployment figure for the last years of the 1930s isn't that much closer to pre-Crash levels?

I'm not saying unemployment wasn't far, far too high, or that it was anywhere near the 3.5% that it was in 1929. I'm saying that the FACTUAL numbers of unemployed during the decade of the 1930s is ambiguous at best, and terribly skewed at worst. I want to know, does Ryan think this is something that should be taken into consideration when evaluating the "success vs failure" of the entire New Deal program instituted in the first 100 days of FDR's first term?

Question #3: If the New Deal policies that were implemented in the early 30's and remained in force into the war years are the examples of policies and programs that slowed recovery rather than started recovery (something Glen Beck LOVES to shout from the roof tops), and if FDR, as the New Deal President, was instrumental (if not primarily responsible) for the long duration of the depression era you repeatedly point at as evidence of the failure of the New Deal policy, then why did we have such a BOOM economy during the Truman years? He was every bit the New Deal President that FDR was, yet we saw the unprecedented explosion of our economy under HIS New Deal Administrations. How did he BOOM, while the same ideology during the 30's prolonged the "Great Depression" and makes you look at FDR as a failure?

Take it even farther for me, and explain how Ike can't be shown to have put the "brakes" on a boom economy with his massive New Deal works project that he liked to call the Federal Interstate Highway System, but which I like to call the single largest public works project ever undertaken in the history of man... 90% of which was paid for by the Federal government. He increased both the size and cost of government by more than 250% during his time in office... yet we credit him with an almost "Golden Age" recollection of his time in office. How can this be, if New Deal policies and programs are INHERENTLY bad for an economy? How do we look at Ike's success, but call the same types of policies and programs during the FDR years as "failing utterly"?

Question #4: You repeatedly point to the Recession of 1937 as one of the (many) reasons that FDR was a failure as President prior to Dec 1941... why? What aspect of FDR's policies or programs can you point to and say "This was the cause of the '37 recession, and THIS is why it is called the "Roosevelt Recession"? Why do you contend that the "Roosevelt" name isn't associated with the recession simply because he was President at the time it occurred?

Keynesian supporters (myself among them) seem to agree that the cause of that recession was the increase in payroll taxes, coupled with a dramatic reduction in Federal spending in an attempt to balance the budget before the economy was ready for the price to be paid. Milton Friedman (the polar opposite of Keynes, and one of his loudest critics) blamed the Federal Reserve when it reduced the national monetary supply by 40% in late 1936, and artificially drove "deflation" to new heights. Proponents of the "Austrian School" of economics (those that support a total laissez faire system of economic theory, of which Wilkow and Mike Church are HUGE fans) blame the recession on inflationary bank credit policies employed to work around the new Federal regulations implemented by the very New Deal you are calling a "failure".

Pick a published, established or stated opinion... but I couldn't find one "economist" that blamed even one iota of the Recession of '37 on the New Deal or FDR. Not even his biggest critics thought to blame these policies or this President... so please tell me why you do so, repeatedly and with such passion?

Question #5: (last one, I promise...) As Jambo has made the point that, without the New Deal, we couldn't have won the war... I want to know if you think that anyone OTHER than FDR could have or would have provided the Lend/Lease program that kept the UK in the fight until Dec of 1941? Could the US have "jump started" the war effort (meaning the rapid and total conversion of our civilian and consumer means of production and distribution into war-time military production and deployment) WITHOUT the programs and policies of the New Deal established and in place?

Now, I know that your point was that the New Deal wasn't implemented with the intention of winning a war that was still 9 years away... but the question has merit, and while the rapid growth and expansion of the government is antithetical to every fiber of your being (I know), can you argue that it was a primary factor in our ability to move from a peace-time footing with a military of less than 300,000 men to the juggernaut that put Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan to bed in less than four years?

If the results of the admittedly unprecedented government spending that was the "New Deal Era" served the nation in ways that made the winning of WWII possible and continued to serve and benefit the nation in the decades after the war, can you instantly dismiss those results AND the means by which they were gained as an utter failure, simply because they hadn't been done before or are contrary to your personal view of how government should operate? After all, the same man that implemented the policies and programs was the man that WON THE WAR (for all intents and purposes, since Truman kept all the same policies in place till after the war), wasn't he? Can you seperate the two, simply because the war started in 1941 rather than 1932?

All I want to say now is that I am not trying to pick a fight... answer these questions or don't, it doesn't matter. You complain about my not "understanding you" as often as I say the same thing about you, so I know the frustration you feel when it seems no one is listening to you. I do listen... I just don't understand how you can think the things you do sometimes.

That's all.