That fine, but it doesn't change anything...

Since you can't get past the FACT that the original figures are skewed, I have (repeadedly) agreed to admit that UNEMPLOYMENT REMAINED TOO HIGH, whether it was 16% in 1939 or 10% in 1939... so can we get past the whole unemployment thing already? I won't even mention that every single online source you can hope to find offers unemployment figures reflecting estimates with farmers BOTH included and excluded... including the most liberal-based sources like Wikipedia and the most conservative-based sources like the Cato Institute.

I have not ever suggested that New Deal "fixed" unemployment, but New Deal started the fix. Arguments about Hoover not being a "Reagan conservative" are meaningless, because Reagan hadn't proven the Keynesian model through his Presidential policies yet, and wouldn't for nearly fifty years. Hoover was the epitome of laissez faire economic policy, though, and I am still waiting for a defense of that policy in light of the complete absence of improvement or recovery prior to the New Deal. Hoover was the shining light of "conservative" policies in the age of the Great Depression and no other example of what was actually being proposed by the anti-New Deal crowd is available for us to review.

By the way, the "lost gospel" analogy was particularly rich, coming from a professed Mormon... but that is another post entirely.

We can let it stand as it does right now... that is fine. I am 100% confident that the argument I have laid out here is every bit as valid a defense of New Deal success as anything you have shown as evidence of its failure, and we can simply leave the final determination to the increasing number of visitors that our site is getting every week.

If you go back and re-read the posts we have made, and are happy with your presentation of the "conservative" defense of why the New Deal failed, by all means... let it go. I'm confident that no one is going to interpret my point as someone pulling a "Joseph Smith" and inventing evidence to further my case... even if you do.

It was fun while it lasted, though...