This is pure sinful pride and narcissism of the first order... but I have to share:
We had a busy Saturday here at the joint. I was running the high limit room (far less glamorous than it sounds) and all the BJ games were $100 or better, and all were going strong. Three were reserved for $250k players or better... and we had some big lines in the house because Andrew Dice Clay was doing a show at our house.
So, it's a couple of hours before the show kicks off, and in walks the Diceman himself. Plain clothes, an eyepatch (go figure) and some really freaky hair. He has no account with us, so he buys in for $8k and goes to town. I pay him almost no mind... too busy a room to even look twice at a less-than-$10k buy-in... until he asks if the cage has safe deposit boxes for guests. I tell him no, but each hotel room has a safe in it that only the guest can access. He nods, thanks me... then asks me where he knows me from.
I have two shift bosses, two floors, at least one dealer and a cocktail waitress all hear this question, and they ALL turn to me to see what I'm going to say. I told him we had met about ten years ago in Biloxi, at the Grand Casino when he did a show there... and he asked how I made out after the storm. We end up talking for a few minutes, and he talked about doing shows down there after the storm.
I guess no one else in the house ever met the Diceman before... but I had. That was all ANYONE could talk about for the last few hours of my shift. I think I made out pretty well... once again, Titus is cool beyond words.
[flex]
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Good shows gone bad...
Time was, I was a big fan of British documentary maker Michael Wood. He's taken on some big topics, and made some very good shows.
Then I noticed "Legacy" in my Instant Queue on Netflix and watched it.
The show was made in the early 90s (no reference to 9-11, only the '91 Gulf War... and repeated references to the USSR), but the cultural bias is so amazingly HUGE even then, it almost makes the show impossible to watch.
The show is a study on the five starting points of "civilizations" throughout history: Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, China, Meso-America, and Europe. It shows the geographical, climatological, demographic and political machinations that brought about "city living" across the scope of history.
I slugged through all the episodes, waiting to get to the last episode (The Barbarian West). All were good, but I couldn't help but wonder at his over-emphasis on the "peaceful" nature of ALL the first four starting points. Then I saw the Barbarian West.
You'd think that not a single fist was ever raised in anger that didn't originate in or come in contact with the "West". The emphasis that our Western culture has placed on the strengths found in individual freedoms in the last two centuries are not mistakes... they aren't even the exceptions. You'll have to watch it for yourselves... but he really seems to be trying to convince the viewers that our Western society (going all the way back to Alexander, mind you) is the ONLY male-oriented, militaristic, religiously intolerant, imperialist, and genocidal culture to ever have found itself rampant on the Earth.
Where does slavery still exist today? Not in the "West". Where is infanticide still a tool of the state to control population? Not in the "West". Where is the role you play in society dictated by the form of employment that your fathers and grandfathers were "born to"? Not in the West.
I was amazed that the man used the Nazi Holocaust as an example of the irrational nature inherent in a culture that proposes to be based in the "Age of Reason"... and dismisses the Japanese Holocaust as "Western" influence in Imperial Japan. The Chinese first Emperor couldn't be called "genocidal" in the manner and means by which he unified China, and then built the Great Wall? Kublai Khan wasn't every bit as "militaristic" as Napoleon in his goals and objectives? Saladin wasn't simply "responding" to the Crusades when he seized, sacked and destroyed Damascus... a Muslim city that the Crusaders couldn't take... he was cementing his own personal power base, just as Saddam Hussein was in 1990.
His assertion that communism in the East has failed because it is contrary to the 5,000 history of the Asiatic peoples is utterly baseless. Communism, in any guise, is doomed to fail... but communism in China and North Korea bears as much resemblance to its Marxist-Leninist roots as tofu does to pepperoni, so saying that it is a "Western" philosophy that is alien to Eastern culture is utter crap. Cultures, across the globe, have habitually taken from one society and incorporated into their own. We owe the Chinese for gunpowder, pasta, the printed page, and shrimp fried rice... but Chinese culture is just as dependent today on things gained from the West, and not all of them are BAD.
What a load of bunk.
Then I noticed "Legacy" in my Instant Queue on Netflix and watched it.
The show was made in the early 90s (no reference to 9-11, only the '91 Gulf War... and repeated references to the USSR), but the cultural bias is so amazingly HUGE even then, it almost makes the show impossible to watch.
The show is a study on the five starting points of "civilizations" throughout history: Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, China, Meso-America, and Europe. It shows the geographical, climatological, demographic and political machinations that brought about "city living" across the scope of history.
I slugged through all the episodes, waiting to get to the last episode (The Barbarian West). All were good, but I couldn't help but wonder at his over-emphasis on the "peaceful" nature of ALL the first four starting points. Then I saw the Barbarian West.
You'd think that not a single fist was ever raised in anger that didn't originate in or come in contact with the "West". The emphasis that our Western culture has placed on the strengths found in individual freedoms in the last two centuries are not mistakes... they aren't even the exceptions. You'll have to watch it for yourselves... but he really seems to be trying to convince the viewers that our Western society (going all the way back to Alexander, mind you) is the ONLY male-oriented, militaristic, religiously intolerant, imperialist, and genocidal culture to ever have found itself rampant on the Earth.
Where does slavery still exist today? Not in the "West". Where is infanticide still a tool of the state to control population? Not in the "West". Where is the role you play in society dictated by the form of employment that your fathers and grandfathers were "born to"? Not in the West.
I was amazed that the man used the Nazi Holocaust as an example of the irrational nature inherent in a culture that proposes to be based in the "Age of Reason"... and dismisses the Japanese Holocaust as "Western" influence in Imperial Japan. The Chinese first Emperor couldn't be called "genocidal" in the manner and means by which he unified China, and then built the Great Wall? Kublai Khan wasn't every bit as "militaristic" as Napoleon in his goals and objectives? Saladin wasn't simply "responding" to the Crusades when he seized, sacked and destroyed Damascus... a Muslim city that the Crusaders couldn't take... he was cementing his own personal power base, just as Saddam Hussein was in 1990.
His assertion that communism in the East has failed because it is contrary to the 5,000 history of the Asiatic peoples is utterly baseless. Communism, in any guise, is doomed to fail... but communism in China and North Korea bears as much resemblance to its Marxist-Leninist roots as tofu does to pepperoni, so saying that it is a "Western" philosophy that is alien to Eastern culture is utter crap. Cultures, across the globe, have habitually taken from one society and incorporated into their own. We owe the Chinese for gunpowder, pasta, the printed page, and shrimp fried rice... but Chinese culture is just as dependent today on things gained from the West, and not all of them are BAD.
What a load of bunk.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Let's go the next step...
If for no other reason than I am not busy this morning until such time as I can get outside and cut grass.
You wrote: "You "would do" for yourself, or you would assume your Rights yourself, because those Rights were inherint, not granted."
Are there any circumstances under which the Fed can "do for you" outside of the inherent rights already defined in the Constitution? Is there a line between legitimate support for a citizen and welfare? What "rights" are granted by government and what benefits arise from those rights?
For example, completing a four year term of service in the US military gets you trained, fed, housed and remunerated for the entire term... once that term is up, do Federal benefits that continue the rest of your life constitute "welfare" or "support"? Pensions that only Congress are eligible for (and health benefits) cost the taxpayers millions each year, and these benefits continue even after they are out of office... welfare or legitimate support? What about the FEMA money some of us received after Katrina? Welfare or support?
You wrote: "You "would do" for yourself, or you would assume your Rights yourself, because those Rights were inherint, not granted."
Are there any circumstances under which the Fed can "do for you" outside of the inherent rights already defined in the Constitution? Is there a line between legitimate support for a citizen and welfare? What "rights" are granted by government and what benefits arise from those rights?
For example, completing a four year term of service in the US military gets you trained, fed, housed and remunerated for the entire term... once that term is up, do Federal benefits that continue the rest of your life constitute "welfare" or "support"? Pensions that only Congress are eligible for (and health benefits) cost the taxpayers millions each year, and these benefits continue even after they are out of office... welfare or legitimate support? What about the FEMA money some of us received after Katrina? Welfare or support?
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Fair Enough
I know I added comments (& text you an "alert"), but in the interest of posterity (after all what would future generations do without a succinct reading of our discourse ever ready to guide them through times of tumult?), I chose to dump those and add them more cohesively here.
My title, "fair enough", is my only response to your last ... a sincere response, no glib parting shot intended.
On your post,"Wait a Second", you defined my meaning of "the Founders were interested in process, not results" damn near perfectly. We have no beef. No misunderstanding.
My describing FDR as technically operating with the "process" was me trying to cede a small point (in my mind) to get to the larger. In other words I thought you were defending FDR (i.e. "he didn't fundamentally change anything") as honoring the Founders intent because he technically operated "within" the "process" (duly elected, etc). I thought it was a rudimentary interpretation of my process point, but I didn't want to get hung up on that because I believed you took the overall point quite well (and clearly you did). If I misinterpreted your "he didn't fundamentally change anything", then I apologize.
Now, I'll go even further (in terms of Obama being right - whoa, did I actually just write that?). If this process of government, including the charter of "negative liberties", operates in the way the blueprint was set up, then the entire point of the process was that government could not do anything "to you" (or "for" as Obama defines it and demands that it must). You "would do" for yourself, or you would assume your Rights yourself, because those Rights were inherint, not granted.
In any event, when it comes to my "fine point" as you put it (ok, now I'm being gratuitously self congratulatory - if for nothing else than perseverance), we are on the same page.
My title, "fair enough", is my only response to your last ... a sincere response, no glib parting shot intended.
On your post,"Wait a Second", you defined my meaning of "the Founders were interested in process, not results" damn near perfectly. We have no beef. No misunderstanding.
My describing FDR as technically operating with the "process" was me trying to cede a small point (in my mind) to get to the larger. In other words I thought you were defending FDR (i.e. "he didn't fundamentally change anything") as honoring the Founders intent because he technically operated "within" the "process" (duly elected, etc). I thought it was a rudimentary interpretation of my process point, but I didn't want to get hung up on that because I believed you took the overall point quite well (and clearly you did). If I misinterpreted your "he didn't fundamentally change anything", then I apologize.
Now, I'll go even further (in terms of Obama being right - whoa, did I actually just write that?). If this process of government, including the charter of "negative liberties", operates in the way the blueprint was set up, then the entire point of the process was that government could not do anything "to you" (or "for" as Obama defines it and demands that it must). You "would do" for yourself, or you would assume your Rights yourself, because those Rights were inherint, not granted.
In any event, when it comes to my "fine point" as you put it (ok, now I'm being gratuitously self congratulatory - if for nothing else than perseverance), we are on the same page.
On my faith in New Deal...
Speaking of bad form... I conceded the point, in its entirety. I cannot claim to be any more right than you are, since I can't make you (or anyone else, for that matter) see the basis of my point. All I "clarified" was that you hadn't convinced me of the absolute nature of your argument anymore than I had convinced you of mine.
I'm the first to admit I'm a stubborn son of a gun, on the best of days... I don't like losing an argument to you or anyone else. If I couldn't make you see even a portion of my point, and even my own brother doubted the validity of my position, then I was forced to admit that my position might be as untenable as you claimed it to be.
My "faith" lays with God, the Church and what I know to be true and undeniable... the depression that started in 1929 was over by 1934, two years after FDR won his first election. Since that time, with such "progressive" behemoths as the SEC, FDIC, the Federal Reserve, Social Security all soundly in place, there has never been another depression; no recessionary economy has lasted more than 9 months; the United States has reached unprecedented highs in the realms of economic growth, domestic prosperity, personal wealth and opportunity; and we still maintain the highest standard of living (across the board) of any populous since the dawn of recorded history.
I simply have decided to stop trying to convince anyone that New Deal contributed more to the efforts to end the era of the Great Depression than it hindered. I could very well be wrong in my assumptions, conclusions and ideas, but until such time as I am able to prove them, the debate is over and I concede that your point wins.
I'm the first to admit I'm a stubborn son of a gun, on the best of days... I don't like losing an argument to you or anyone else. If I couldn't make you see even a portion of my point, and even my own brother doubted the validity of my position, then I was forced to admit that my position might be as untenable as you claimed it to be.
My "faith" lays with God, the Church and what I know to be true and undeniable... the depression that started in 1929 was over by 1934, two years after FDR won his first election. Since that time, with such "progressive" behemoths as the SEC, FDIC, the Federal Reserve, Social Security all soundly in place, there has never been another depression; no recessionary economy has lasted more than 9 months; the United States has reached unprecedented highs in the realms of economic growth, domestic prosperity, personal wealth and opportunity; and we still maintain the highest standard of living (across the board) of any populous since the dawn of recorded history.
I simply have decided to stop trying to convince anyone that New Deal contributed more to the efforts to end the era of the Great Depression than it hindered. I could very well be wrong in my assumptions, conclusions and ideas, but until such time as I am able to prove them, the debate is over and I concede that your point wins.
Wait a second...
I see your point about the greater expectation of the citizenry in regards to what they receive from the government... "results", as you say. FDR could very well have put himself in a role as "provider" more than he did a "leader" and that is not good, intentional or otherwise.
But lets not confuse the excellent point you made earlier. You said the Founders were "interested" in the process of government, and not the results. I took that to mean they were "motivated" by the process of how government would operate, not by what government would do. In that regard, there is merit in what Obama said about a charter of negative liberties... they only ever intended to specify what government COULD NOT do, the boundaries that government could not cross. In doing so, they specified what inherent rights the government recognized as greater than itself, and thus what it must always protect above all else. It is the ideal blueprint for a government charter... you can go this far, and no further. The rest is up to the people elected and filling the offices of government itself. In short, the role government plays in the lives of the citizenry, as long as it doesn't deny the rights protected already, is outside of the realm of what the Founder's planned at all, isn't it?
As harmful as you may think FDR and his policies were to America in the 1930's and beyond, by the very definitions you seem to espouse of the role that a "leader" like the PotUS must take, FDR did what the people mandated he do. Had the status quo of previous President's and their policies sufficed, he wouldn't have had the opportunity to accomplish any of the "bad" things we keep talking about. His "ideology" wouldn't have appealed to the voting public at all.
But lets not confuse the excellent point you made earlier. You said the Founders were "interested" in the process of government, and not the results. I took that to mean they were "motivated" by the process of how government would operate, not by what government would do. In that regard, there is merit in what Obama said about a charter of negative liberties... they only ever intended to specify what government COULD NOT do, the boundaries that government could not cross. In doing so, they specified what inherent rights the government recognized as greater than itself, and thus what it must always protect above all else. It is the ideal blueprint for a government charter... you can go this far, and no further. The rest is up to the people elected and filling the offices of government itself. In short, the role government plays in the lives of the citizenry, as long as it doesn't deny the rights protected already, is outside of the realm of what the Founder's planned at all, isn't it?
As harmful as you may think FDR and his policies were to America in the 1930's and beyond, by the very definitions you seem to espouse of the role that a "leader" like the PotUS must take, FDR did what the people mandated he do. Had the status quo of previous President's and their policies sufficed, he wouldn't have had the opportunity to accomplish any of the "bad" things we keep talking about. His "ideology" wouldn't have appealed to the voting public at all.
"claryifying" concessions
That's always a messy business, and just bad form.
Come on man, if you want to ask me all those questions, ask them, but to restate the "conditional concession" ... oy. I didn't misread it the first time. The "realizations" , epiphany as you called it, that I spoke to in my post were simple, and what I thought you were basing your concession on: you are not a liberal because a results oriented planned economy policy does not work. You can not point to any version of such policies working before New Deal. You can not point to any working after New Deal. Hence, you could not adequately defend it (using historical examples or personal ideology); nor prove conclusively that from 1929-1945 it worked. I got it. To reiterate just because I waxed on a bit in the follow up post is, well, bad form (to me anyway, what did you think would happen at the conclusion of a decade long debate?). Concede or don't, but I got it the first time. Your "belief" that "something" must have worked (your words), despite the ability to offer "proof" (also your phrasing) has now reached an almost religious level. The conscious and rationale of an adult may have been enough to compel you're concession of the argument, but it certainly hasn't shook your "faith" in New Deal. And apparently I can no more to talk you out of that religiosity than I can Catholicism. Nor will I try.
Two points:
1.) You wrote (I'm paraphrasing): "Despite FDR's efforts, nothing fundamental has changed." It's true he didn't literally alter the Constitution, or its' process. However, his tenure did fundamentally alter the interpretation of the commerce clause (which we suffer from today in both 2nd Amendment restrictions and Obamacare); and more than that, he altered government's relationship with the individual citizen. He set the standard, used to this day, of a government concerned with "results." An ideology I contend became prominent first with Wilson. The expectations of those elected to office, and those who get the goodies they promise, have changed. In fact, I believe those expectations of, and relationship with, government fundamentally changed under FDR, forever. I mentioned this when I wrote that his "great success" to progressives like Obama is that he altered the American fabric to "expect" their government to ensure certain "results." And he did so even by the programs that failed or were tossed out. The attempts are expected now. The standard in a crisis, any crisis now, is government interventionism, typically on the federal level. THAT is a fundamental change that I ascribe to FDR. Others may disagree who is to blame, but the relaity of its' existence is clear. Now you can certainly argue that "nothing fundamental changed" if you're saying all that happened under New Deal was that legislation was passed by a duly elected congress, signed into law bu a duly elected chief executive, and declared Constitutional or not by a duly appointed Judiciary, thus he didn't alter the fabric of the process. That's fine. I don't disagree. The problem is that all those duly elected and appointed individuals are now influenced by the emphasis on "results" that FDR/New Deal embedded in American society. "The Constitution as I understand it..." versus as the Founders understood it, or at least its' plain meaning (case law precedent rather than Constitutionality, the commerce clause, just as examples), is prevalent today. I believe FDR made it so. My opinion, anyone can disagree. Although I doubt any Progressives do, the reasons I laid out against him are the very ones they worship him for.
2.) When is enough government interventionism "enough." This is a fine debate tactic, kudos. It's much like the one I've oft used on those Left of center who ascribe the need for a more punishing progressive tax code. It's a simple way to destroy their argument. Ask: "What percentage - give me a number - of a person's income is it fair for the government to take?" Typically, not knowing the top marginal rate, they'll pick a number lower than is currently in place; or they'll pick a number so high I it will reveal themselves as not serious players at best, commies at worst (ha). I can't go over the litany of 236 years of American domestic policy and say here, here, here are too far; here, here and here are just right ... I'm not a historical Goldie Locks. I can only answer specific examples. The War on Drugs? Legalization is not the answer. And no new laws need be passed. We are a sovereign nation. We have every right to enforce the boundaries of that sovereignty. I'm not being glib here, but our land border is more porous than our borders over bodies of water. Much like immigration, we must enforce our boundaries. And every president in my lifetime (including Reagan) has utterly failed in this fundamental responsibility of the Federal Government. Hezbollah agents, suitcase nukes, illegal immigrants, angel dust, or bad Tylenol, none of it should come across - its' a legitimate function of the Feds to disallow illegal crossings of humans, goods, drugs, weapons, or supplies (or anything for that matter, if it's an "illegal" crossing).
Look, I appreciate the kind words about emphasis on results versus process. It is the sea change I think Wilson started, and FDR took to its' next logical level; LBJ took up again; and Obama is attempting today. My point about FDR is he made it a standard part/expectation of American society. After Lincoln his successors didn't go around suspending state legislatures when it suited them (or AZ would be in trouble today). However, every Republican president since Eisenhower has upheld the New Deal Policies (more or less) that remained, and every Democrat has expanded on their theme with programs of his own. FDR (or any of them) didn't have to fundamentally change the process to get Americans to fundamentally focus on results; they merely had to change the focus of government from one to the other. And that's what I think FDR did "better" than any of the other names we bandied about - he made normal the American citizens expectation that his or her government should concern itself with results. And he did so within the process the Founders set in place. If you want to label him "successful", than do so for that. It was an awesome (destructively so in my estimation) achievement.
Come on man, if you want to ask me all those questions, ask them, but to restate the "conditional concession" ... oy. I didn't misread it the first time. The "realizations" , epiphany as you called it, that I spoke to in my post were simple, and what I thought you were basing your concession on: you are not a liberal because a results oriented planned economy policy does not work. You can not point to any version of such policies working before New Deal. You can not point to any working after New Deal. Hence, you could not adequately defend it (using historical examples or personal ideology); nor prove conclusively that from 1929-1945 it worked. I got it. To reiterate just because I waxed on a bit in the follow up post is, well, bad form (to me anyway, what did you think would happen at the conclusion of a decade long debate?). Concede or don't, but I got it the first time. Your "belief" that "something" must have worked (your words), despite the ability to offer "proof" (also your phrasing) has now reached an almost religious level. The conscious and rationale of an adult may have been enough to compel you're concession of the argument, but it certainly hasn't shook your "faith" in New Deal. And apparently I can no more to talk you out of that religiosity than I can Catholicism. Nor will I try.
Two points:
1.) You wrote (I'm paraphrasing): "Despite FDR's efforts, nothing fundamental has changed." It's true he didn't literally alter the Constitution, or its' process. However, his tenure did fundamentally alter the interpretation of the commerce clause (which we suffer from today in both 2nd Amendment restrictions and Obamacare); and more than that, he altered government's relationship with the individual citizen. He set the standard, used to this day, of a government concerned with "results." An ideology I contend became prominent first with Wilson. The expectations of those elected to office, and those who get the goodies they promise, have changed. In fact, I believe those expectations of, and relationship with, government fundamentally changed under FDR, forever. I mentioned this when I wrote that his "great success" to progressives like Obama is that he altered the American fabric to "expect" their government to ensure certain "results." And he did so even by the programs that failed or were tossed out. The attempts are expected now. The standard in a crisis, any crisis now, is government interventionism, typically on the federal level. THAT is a fundamental change that I ascribe to FDR. Others may disagree who is to blame, but the relaity of its' existence is clear. Now you can certainly argue that "nothing fundamental changed" if you're saying all that happened under New Deal was that legislation was passed by a duly elected congress, signed into law bu a duly elected chief executive, and declared Constitutional or not by a duly appointed Judiciary, thus he didn't alter the fabric of the process. That's fine. I don't disagree. The problem is that all those duly elected and appointed individuals are now influenced by the emphasis on "results" that FDR/New Deal embedded in American society. "The Constitution as I understand it..." versus as the Founders understood it, or at least its' plain meaning (case law precedent rather than Constitutionality, the commerce clause, just as examples), is prevalent today. I believe FDR made it so. My opinion, anyone can disagree. Although I doubt any Progressives do, the reasons I laid out against him are the very ones they worship him for.
2.) When is enough government interventionism "enough." This is a fine debate tactic, kudos. It's much like the one I've oft used on those Left of center who ascribe the need for a more punishing progressive tax code. It's a simple way to destroy their argument. Ask: "What percentage - give me a number - of a person's income is it fair for the government to take?" Typically, not knowing the top marginal rate, they'll pick a number lower than is currently in place; or they'll pick a number so high I it will reveal themselves as not serious players at best, commies at worst (ha). I can't go over the litany of 236 years of American domestic policy and say here, here, here are too far; here, here and here are just right ... I'm not a historical Goldie Locks. I can only answer specific examples. The War on Drugs? Legalization is not the answer. And no new laws need be passed. We are a sovereign nation. We have every right to enforce the boundaries of that sovereignty. I'm not being glib here, but our land border is more porous than our borders over bodies of water. Much like immigration, we must enforce our boundaries. And every president in my lifetime (including Reagan) has utterly failed in this fundamental responsibility of the Federal Government. Hezbollah agents, suitcase nukes, illegal immigrants, angel dust, or bad Tylenol, none of it should come across - its' a legitimate function of the Feds to disallow illegal crossings of humans, goods, drugs, weapons, or supplies (or anything for that matter, if it's an "illegal" crossing).
Look, I appreciate the kind words about emphasis on results versus process. It is the sea change I think Wilson started, and FDR took to its' next logical level; LBJ took up again; and Obama is attempting today. My point about FDR is he made it a standard part/expectation of American society. After Lincoln his successors didn't go around suspending state legislatures when it suited them (or AZ would be in trouble today). However, every Republican president since Eisenhower has upheld the New Deal Policies (more or less) that remained, and every Democrat has expanded on their theme with programs of his own. FDR (or any of them) didn't have to fundamentally change the process to get Americans to fundamentally focus on results; they merely had to change the focus of government from one to the other. And that's what I think FDR did "better" than any of the other names we bandied about - he made normal the American citizens expectation that his or her government should concern itself with results. And he did so within the process the Founders set in place. If you want to label him "successful", than do so for that. It was an awesome (destructively so in my estimation) achievement.
On my concession...
Without stealing too much of Ryan's thunder... I conceded the point because I was unable to articulate or demonstrate what I still think worked and what didn't in New Deal. We are not witnessing a Loyolan conversion here, or a conservative epiphany given from above... this is my admitting that I simply cannot define what worked versus what didn't to my satisfaction. As much as Ryan is unable to believe that anything designed or approved by FDR or any other progressive could possibly have merit, I am unable to believe that the undeniable fact that something changed between 1929 and 1945 to prevent another depression from occurring is simply a coincidence or some obscure, minuscule detail in a huge global formula that had nothing to do with US policy.
Again, I say, this debate can end whenever you wish... I have conceded the point entirely. I cannot show you that, beyond a reasonable doubt, New Deal fixed what was wrong with the economic engines that had allowed a boom-bust cycle to plague the US economy for more than a century. I cannot prove a negative and say that the Great Depression era wouldn't have lasted as long without New Deal. I have made my case, more than once, and if that hasn't made my position clear then there is no point in my continuing to make it, is there?
Since you have brought up some further points, however, I will respond... not to try and make my points clearer, since that has never worked in this debate, but instead to ask you to clarify yours so I can better understand what you are saying. Nothing angry, petty or bitter... I'm simply asking for clarification on statements you made that I think are ambiguous at best, and contrary to previous positions at worst.
I won't cut and paste... too time consuming going through hundreds of past posts... so what I am giving is a summation of my understanding of your position here:
The Atlantic Charter between FDR and Churchill in '41 paved the way for the Bretton Woods Conference, which made the US dollar the standard for the global economic engine and ushered in the better part of a hundred years of relative prosperity for the US, and which is considered the first moment in US political history where "free trade" between nations was rationally considered to be standard policy... that Charter was a mistake? The Atlantic Charter is an acceptable example of government intervention in the market place that can be used as an example of American policies that detract from the stated goals and ideals of our founding documents? Bretton Woods and the accords which stem from it are going to cost the US and the world more in the long run than they have benefited us?
The ability of the US Federal Reserve to pump money into the economy without maintaining an equivalent supply of gold freed the Treasury to adjust monetary supply to counter market inconsistencies, and it is this ability and freedom that I think is a direct and measurable portion of the "success" that came from just the sort of government intervention that you decry. Following successful standards established over the last 80 years, inflation has been avoided in all but the most careless and casual cases of government spending (Nixon/Ford/Carter comes to mind where it did rear its head... but at a very recoverable rate, I'd say)... and current concerns over high government spending still haven't defeated what history has shown to be a very functional model.
Your extrapolated example of how the troubles in the EU could effect the US in the long (LONG) term are valid, I don't argue... but they are also just as real and just as inherent in a system where complete and unfettered free trade exists. Having any significant portion of our trading partners suffer an economic meltdown the likes of which Greece, Italy, Spain and Mexico have had in just the very recent past is bound to have ripple effects across the global market. If you don't think that is true, then simply look at what a rumor of higher oil prices does to the cost of gas here in the US on any given day of the week.
Another example: The US Navy's intervention against ocean-going drug trafficking from South America costs the US taxpayer nearly $700 million a month... a very significant cost, you'll agree... and its measurable and specific benefits are not always immediately apparent, but it is working. Ten years ago, 70% of all cocaine traffic into the US was via surface-going ocean vessels. That number is now down to less than 30%, and it is falling. The unintended result of this is that the traffic in cocaine to the US is being forced to go overland through Central America and Mexico, and it is crippling those national economies and directly effecting the lives and safety of people living in close proximity to the Mexican-American border. Our stated goal was to limit (ultimately to end) overseas drug trafficking into the US... but in fact we are simply forcing it to find alternative means into the country and causing new problems to present where they didn't exist before. Should we follow the principles defined by your stated view of "less government is better government", what would be the solution? End the interdiction? Expand the interdiction to overland routes through the Isthmus of Panama? Or simply deregulate the drug laws, so that the problem is ended entirely?
The long and the short of my question is this: When is enough enough? You point to all the failures of New Deal, or of Wilson's "progressive" failures, and the damage both did to the "constitutionality" of the US, of how they both looked to ignore or change the stated and ratified Constitution of the United States... yet, fundamentally, very little has changed. The checks and balances put in place by the founder's have worked in each and every case, and continue to work now. Prohibition was about the best example of the failure inherent in the idea that morality can be regulated and enforced by government, and it wasn't carried out by Executive orders or Presidential authority run amok. It was accomplished via the mandated process of Constitutional amendment, and could only be repealed by Constitutional amendment. The country, by the very founder's design, ignored the inherently immoral basis for slavery in America, hoping against hope that the "problem" would work itself out of its own accord sometime in the future. The "problem" was solved by the costliest and bloodiest war the United States ever fought, a war that is still felt in the national psyche t this day. Was that a mistake on the founder's part? Was that a "flaw" in the Constitution?
Here is where I have to admit that I am very impressed and moved by what you wrote. The founders were motivated by the process, rather than the results. The means to end slavery, for the founders, was put in place within the Constitution... but I am convinced that they recognized that the country as a whole wasn't ready for the institution to end via forced intervention. They could have allowed the question to end the effort in nation building that brought the US to fruition, with nothing more than a sweep of the pen and a show of hands (the anti-slavery portion of the Convention was bigger than the pro by 17 members)... but the results would have been contrary to the effort. Better to allow a flawed USA than to have no USA at all, in other words.
That being the case, the Civil War ended the scourge of slavery... but forever changed the face of the Republic and the manner in which it was governed, while Reconstruction furthered the divide and set back Lincoln's vision of a healed and united USA. Prohibition was put in place to answer a perceived flaw in society, but created more problems than it ever solved. New Deal was a response to a crisis that, to Ryan, solved nothing and prolonged the agony of depression/recession.
The means to stop New Deal, Prohibition, Reconstruction, slavery... all have been in place since 1787. Just as each and every facet of New Deal that exists today has run the gauntlet of constitutional approval, and thus is seen as "legal", if nothing else... each and every facet of New Deal can be repealed or removed. Your contention that FDR, Wilson and Obama all wanted to "end" or "change" the US at a fundamental level is difficult to prove, at best, since A) two are dead and B) none would ever have openly admitted as much and hoped to remain in office. That all three have made mistakes... no one here is arguing that point at all.
FDR, then, is a good example of the "system" working. He did what no one else had done, and what passed the Constitutional test remains, what didn't is gone and (nearly) forgotten... all because the People of the United States of America stated their readiness to "change" the status quo by electing him and supporting his policies. He broke no more Constitutional rules than the greatest of his predecessors did while they were in office (Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln)... he simply followed a different ideology, if Ryan is to be understood. Perhaps he did focus on results rather than the process... it is as good an analyses of his Presidency as any I have heard. I simply don't see him "fundamentally" changing government or the manner in which government functions in this nation. I don't deny that he might have tried... but so did other Presidents that sit far higher on the Tops list than FDR does.
Again, I say, this debate can end whenever you wish... I have conceded the point entirely. I cannot show you that, beyond a reasonable doubt, New Deal fixed what was wrong with the economic engines that had allowed a boom-bust cycle to plague the US economy for more than a century. I cannot prove a negative and say that the Great Depression era wouldn't have lasted as long without New Deal. I have made my case, more than once, and if that hasn't made my position clear then there is no point in my continuing to make it, is there?
Since you have brought up some further points, however, I will respond... not to try and make my points clearer, since that has never worked in this debate, but instead to ask you to clarify yours so I can better understand what you are saying. Nothing angry, petty or bitter... I'm simply asking for clarification on statements you made that I think are ambiguous at best, and contrary to previous positions at worst.
I won't cut and paste... too time consuming going through hundreds of past posts... so what I am giving is a summation of my understanding of your position here:
The Atlantic Charter between FDR and Churchill in '41 paved the way for the Bretton Woods Conference, which made the US dollar the standard for the global economic engine and ushered in the better part of a hundred years of relative prosperity for the US, and which is considered the first moment in US political history where "free trade" between nations was rationally considered to be standard policy... that Charter was a mistake? The Atlantic Charter is an acceptable example of government intervention in the market place that can be used as an example of American policies that detract from the stated goals and ideals of our founding documents? Bretton Woods and the accords which stem from it are going to cost the US and the world more in the long run than they have benefited us?
The ability of the US Federal Reserve to pump money into the economy without maintaining an equivalent supply of gold freed the Treasury to adjust monetary supply to counter market inconsistencies, and it is this ability and freedom that I think is a direct and measurable portion of the "success" that came from just the sort of government intervention that you decry. Following successful standards established over the last 80 years, inflation has been avoided in all but the most careless and casual cases of government spending (Nixon/Ford/Carter comes to mind where it did rear its head... but at a very recoverable rate, I'd say)... and current concerns over high government spending still haven't defeated what history has shown to be a very functional model.
Your extrapolated example of how the troubles in the EU could effect the US in the long (LONG) term are valid, I don't argue... but they are also just as real and just as inherent in a system where complete and unfettered free trade exists. Having any significant portion of our trading partners suffer an economic meltdown the likes of which Greece, Italy, Spain and Mexico have had in just the very recent past is bound to have ripple effects across the global market. If you don't think that is true, then simply look at what a rumor of higher oil prices does to the cost of gas here in the US on any given day of the week.
Another example: The US Navy's intervention against ocean-going drug trafficking from South America costs the US taxpayer nearly $700 million a month... a very significant cost, you'll agree... and its measurable and specific benefits are not always immediately apparent, but it is working. Ten years ago, 70% of all cocaine traffic into the US was via surface-going ocean vessels. That number is now down to less than 30%, and it is falling. The unintended result of this is that the traffic in cocaine to the US is being forced to go overland through Central America and Mexico, and it is crippling those national economies and directly effecting the lives and safety of people living in close proximity to the Mexican-American border. Our stated goal was to limit (ultimately to end) overseas drug trafficking into the US... but in fact we are simply forcing it to find alternative means into the country and causing new problems to present where they didn't exist before. Should we follow the principles defined by your stated view of "less government is better government", what would be the solution? End the interdiction? Expand the interdiction to overland routes through the Isthmus of Panama? Or simply deregulate the drug laws, so that the problem is ended entirely?
The long and the short of my question is this: When is enough enough? You point to all the failures of New Deal, or of Wilson's "progressive" failures, and the damage both did to the "constitutionality" of the US, of how they both looked to ignore or change the stated and ratified Constitution of the United States... yet, fundamentally, very little has changed. The checks and balances put in place by the founder's have worked in each and every case, and continue to work now. Prohibition was about the best example of the failure inherent in the idea that morality can be regulated and enforced by government, and it wasn't carried out by Executive orders or Presidential authority run amok. It was accomplished via the mandated process of Constitutional amendment, and could only be repealed by Constitutional amendment. The country, by the very founder's design, ignored the inherently immoral basis for slavery in America, hoping against hope that the "problem" would work itself out of its own accord sometime in the future. The "problem" was solved by the costliest and bloodiest war the United States ever fought, a war that is still felt in the national psyche t this day. Was that a mistake on the founder's part? Was that a "flaw" in the Constitution?
Here is where I have to admit that I am very impressed and moved by what you wrote. The founders were motivated by the process, rather than the results. The means to end slavery, for the founders, was put in place within the Constitution... but I am convinced that they recognized that the country as a whole wasn't ready for the institution to end via forced intervention. They could have allowed the question to end the effort in nation building that brought the US to fruition, with nothing more than a sweep of the pen and a show of hands (the anti-slavery portion of the Convention was bigger than the pro by 17 members)... but the results would have been contrary to the effort. Better to allow a flawed USA than to have no USA at all, in other words.
That being the case, the Civil War ended the scourge of slavery... but forever changed the face of the Republic and the manner in which it was governed, while Reconstruction furthered the divide and set back Lincoln's vision of a healed and united USA. Prohibition was put in place to answer a perceived flaw in society, but created more problems than it ever solved. New Deal was a response to a crisis that, to Ryan, solved nothing and prolonged the agony of depression/recession.
The means to stop New Deal, Prohibition, Reconstruction, slavery... all have been in place since 1787. Just as each and every facet of New Deal that exists today has run the gauntlet of constitutional approval, and thus is seen as "legal", if nothing else... each and every facet of New Deal can be repealed or removed. Your contention that FDR, Wilson and Obama all wanted to "end" or "change" the US at a fundamental level is difficult to prove, at best, since A) two are dead and B) none would ever have openly admitted as much and hoped to remain in office. That all three have made mistakes... no one here is arguing that point at all.
FDR, then, is a good example of the "system" working. He did what no one else had done, and what passed the Constitutional test remains, what didn't is gone and (nearly) forgotten... all because the People of the United States of America stated their readiness to "change" the status quo by electing him and supporting his policies. He broke no more Constitutional rules than the greatest of his predecessors did while they were in office (Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln)... he simply followed a different ideology, if Ryan is to be understood. Perhaps he did focus on results rather than the process... it is as good an analyses of his Presidency as any I have heard. I simply don't see him "fundamentally" changing government or the manner in which government functions in this nation. I don't deny that he might have tried... but so did other Presidents that sit far higher on the Tops list than FDR does.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
As my son said when I cooked dinner the other night...
Something stinks!
*(Just a reader's note: if you're looking for the New Deal response, see post below)*
This recent black eye for the Secret Service. This, as a news consumer, is what I am being told: 11 members of the Secret Service advance team, an elite unit, were staying at a 5 star hotel in South America, prepping for the PoTUS's "Summit of the Americas" visit. And they traveled down to a local Colombian stripper club, brought some hookers back to the hotel, kept them there over night - presumably using their services - and the next morning these same 11 agents refused to pay the girls their agreed upon $47 each. The refusal caused a flap, a "broohaha" as it were ensued in which hotel security (in Columbia) were called to settle the dispute, and the story leaked.
That sound right to you?
Second story ... last month a US soldier in Afghanistan walks off a secure base, in the middle of the night, past a series (I think three) checkpoints, with live ammo and weaponry, travels through Taliban held territory, burst into the home of Afghani civilians and massacred them. He then travels back through Talibam held territory, sneaks back onto base, waits 20 minutes (approximately), decides he wants to kill some more, sneaks back through the checkpoints, back through Taliban land, and does the same to two more households, murdering 16 civilians in total, and then ends up safely back on base. Reports say he poured chemicals over the bodies and burned them. A surviving 15 year old boy said "soldiers burst into his home and started killing everyone.
Soldiers? Plural? And he happen to be carrying gallons of chemicals?
Why do these two incidents, in their make up, the premise, their execution, why do they smell like KGB to me? Yes, I know, its the FSB now, but half dozen of one, right? This just doesn't smell right. And SoD Penetta's visit to the Afghan base recently (but before the murders), remember they wouldn't allow any soldiers to carry their firearms with them as they greeted and escorted him around base, only his personal detail carried weapons. Perhaps Intel on Russian agents trying to flip one of our boys? Or at the very least, their old pals the Afghans?
Do you remember a few years ago the big bust up of 11 Soviet (oops, sorry), 11 Russian spies? Remember? The hot girl, was doing Maxim and Playboy, she was one of them? She and the others were eventually traded back for 4 of our guys. 11 huh?
I know this sounds black helicopter conspiratorial, but one thing is clear: Putin intends that the Russian Bear eclipses The US Eagle. He's playing the long game, he's playing for keeps, and in his so-called "democracy", he's not going anywhere. In that effort,the news agency "Russia Today" , a wholly owned subsidy of the Kremlin, is piped into the US et al, explicitly for Western consumption. Guess who starts his new one hour show on that network, today? Julian Assange (wikileaks). A curious place to make home considering that in the 2011 list of countries with the highest journalist murders, Russia was number 1 at 53 unexplained reporters murdered, beating out Columbia at 43, & Pakistan at 35. Curious too given before his UK arrest he warned he was going after Russia next. But why murder a guy bent on releasing state secrets when you can hire him? Why do I get the feeling Assange knows what the line "I made him an offer he couldn't refuse" sounds like in a Russian accent?
Did I mention that Putin cut his teeth as a KGB Colonel?
*(Just a reader's note: if you're looking for the New Deal response, see post below)*
This recent black eye for the Secret Service. This, as a news consumer, is what I am being told: 11 members of the Secret Service advance team, an elite unit, were staying at a 5 star hotel in South America, prepping for the PoTUS's "Summit of the Americas" visit. And they traveled down to a local Colombian stripper club, brought some hookers back to the hotel, kept them there over night - presumably using their services - and the next morning these same 11 agents refused to pay the girls their agreed upon $47 each. The refusal caused a flap, a "broohaha" as it were ensued in which hotel security (in Columbia) were called to settle the dispute, and the story leaked.
That sound right to you?
Second story ... last month a US soldier in Afghanistan walks off a secure base, in the middle of the night, past a series (I think three) checkpoints, with live ammo and weaponry, travels through Taliban held territory, burst into the home of Afghani civilians and massacred them. He then travels back through Talibam held territory, sneaks back onto base, waits 20 minutes (approximately), decides he wants to kill some more, sneaks back through the checkpoints, back through Taliban land, and does the same to two more households, murdering 16 civilians in total, and then ends up safely back on base. Reports say he poured chemicals over the bodies and burned them. A surviving 15 year old boy said "soldiers burst into his home and started killing everyone.
Soldiers? Plural? And he happen to be carrying gallons of chemicals?
Why do these two incidents, in their make up, the premise, their execution, why do they smell like KGB to me? Yes, I know, its the FSB now, but half dozen of one, right? This just doesn't smell right. And SoD Penetta's visit to the Afghan base recently (but before the murders), remember they wouldn't allow any soldiers to carry their firearms with them as they greeted and escorted him around base, only his personal detail carried weapons. Perhaps Intel on Russian agents trying to flip one of our boys? Or at the very least, their old pals the Afghans?
Do you remember a few years ago the big bust up of 11 Soviet (oops, sorry), 11 Russian spies? Remember? The hot girl, was doing Maxim and Playboy, she was one of them? She and the others were eventually traded back for 4 of our guys. 11 huh?
I know this sounds black helicopter conspiratorial, but one thing is clear: Putin intends that the Russian Bear eclipses The US Eagle. He's playing the long game, he's playing for keeps, and in his so-called "democracy", he's not going anywhere. In that effort,the news agency "Russia Today" , a wholly owned subsidy of the Kremlin, is piped into the US et al, explicitly for Western consumption. Guess who starts his new one hour show on that network, today? Julian Assange (wikileaks). A curious place to make home considering that in the 2011 list of countries with the highest journalist murders, Russia was number 1 at 53 unexplained reporters murdered, beating out Columbia at 43, & Pakistan at 35. Curious too given before his UK arrest he warned he was going after Russia next. But why murder a guy bent on releasing state secrets when you can hire him? Why do I get the feeling Assange knows what the line "I made him an offer he couldn't refuse" sounds like in a Russian accent?
Did I mention that Putin cut his teeth as a KGB Colonel?
WOW... check a big one off the bucket list.
I should write a book .... "How To Get A Concession in 10 Easy Years."
Well my friend, my only concern is now is that I will be forced to develop a deep seeded hatred for the Twins in order to match the passion of this debate. I find that prospect particularly alarming given this means I would be forced to endure hours of televised baseball games.
Concession accepted.
I wanted to make mention of something, and I'm not blowing smoke up your backside. I've heard from various conservatives (pick your title) whom were rabid leftists in their youth. And each of them strike me as men willing to be intellectually honest enough to examine the evidence, hence their conversion in thought and position. They've all been thoughtful, intelligent, and able to prosecute their conservative arguments better as a convert than their counterparts whom simply "grew up" that way. I'm not patronizing you, I wouldn't do that. I want to simply say that you are no exception.
And speaking to the "new incarnations" of this same debate, I sensed over the last three years (and Jambo articulated this to me as well), that there was an opportunity to reopen this debate based on how rabidly disillusioned you have become with large (versus small, obviously) government. And that's the key here - the ability to honestly gauge what is working and what is not. And in my view what works is adhering to the process (defined as fidelity to the Constitution) rather than concerning ourselves with the inequalities in results leftists so frequently rail against. And in your critique of Obama these last years I know you have had to go back and cite historical examples to prosecute your argument on why his infidelity to the Constitution does not work. This naturally lead me to a new avenue of attack - "why then do you think New Deal did?"
In my opinion, in crafting the Constitution, the Founders were interested in process, not results. If we follow their lead - if we allow the process they set in place to work - we will not have a perfect society, we will have unequal results. And I think that is the struggle for Progressives. They, well intentioned though they may be, desire to build a perfect society using imperfect men. It's not achievable. And destruction often is the result of their efforts. The process, not results were what mattered from George Washington to Grover Cleveland (a generalization, but a warranted one I believe). Woodrow Wilson represented a break with the Constitution and its' restraining view on government. In Wilson's opinion government did not merely exist to protect Rights: "We are not bound to adhere to the doctrines held by the signers of the Declaration of Independence... The limited government enshrined in the in both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution may have been an advance for the Founders, but society has evolved since then. " In contrast, Cleveland vetoed 414 congressional spending bills alone in his first term to stop what was in his view "unconstitutional spending." Wilson, unlike his predeccessor(s), intended to be a President working with a "living Constitution." And these ideas - that one man could shape his nation to fit the times - weren't limited to America, it purveyed much of organized civilization (my definition for the West plus Russia) for much of the first half of the 20th Century. Wilson regulated overseas shipping rates, subsidized loans to farmers (which is still going on), instituted the 8 hour work day for railroad workers, resegregated the military (and there hasn't been such a rabid a racist in the White House since, perhaps ever), and he implemented the progressive income tax starting at 1% and ending with 77% - all in an attempt to reorganize society to fit this progressive world view: that utopia was achievable with the right administrators. FDR served in the Wilson administration. I believe he bought into this "beneficent government" world view, and the Great Depression undoubtedly served to offer him proof that it was not only necessary, but just. If you listen to the footage of Roosevelt's first swearing in (oh yeah, you want to party? Hang out with me on You Tube - "fun times" as my kids say with both eye brows raised), Chief Justice Charles Evan Hughes noticeably emphasizes the words, "promise to support the Constitution of the United States." Roosevelt responded in kind, elevating his voice to match Hughes’s. Later Roosevelt said he wanted to yell at Hughes, "Yes, but it's but it's the Constitution as I understand it ..." And therein lies the doom - the living, breathing version of our foundiung document.
I'll get to your "no depression since FDR" query in a moment, but I want to say in summary that I see a common theme from Wilson, to FDR, to LBJ, to Carter, to Obama. They each thought the Constitution was outdated, or inefficient, or inadequate, a charter of negative liberties, something we should no longer be bound by, and no longer up to the task. Starting with Wilson we see the framework set up within the US mindset of a "beneficent government", of an emphasis on new Rights rather than Natural Rights. The "success" of FDR in this regard (and from a progressive's point of view) is that he embedded such polices into the American landscape and psychic so much so that later office holders, even those who hold an opposite view of the Constitution, were too scared to dismantle them, sometimes, as you've pointed out, even expanding them both directly and in theme. But I think since Wilson each time this interpretation was the chief oar rowing our policy, the darkest chapters of American economic history over the last 100 years were written (or made worse). And given you seemed to rapidly be coming to that conclusion yourself as of late, in your critique’s of Obama, I thought it might be time to see if you'd apply that conclusion to New Deal and FDR. It seems you have. And I feel like I was just pardoned for a crime I didn't commit ... hehehe. As I told Jambo the other day, "With most people whom I can't bring around I have the luxury of shrugging them off as ignorant or dense ... I have no such luxury with your brother."
****
No Depression since FDR ... undeniably true. Bear in mind, I'm no professional economist, so the attempt to describe the 80 years since WWII, and why their has been no depression, all in a brief post is undoubtedly the height of hubris. So large in fact, even my ego did a double take as I sat down to answer this question ... but as that has never stopped us before "ensign, engage engines."
I sincerely believe that what FDR put in place in terms of the manipulation of the money supply and the FDIC - which in all honesty is the ideological precursor to bail outs for Bear Sterns et al (a federal floor for failure established, "here and no further") - was a cure that will eventually prove itself worse than the disease. I'm forecasting now. Now certainly, you don't expect for me to account for the last 80 years of US and world economic policy, all of which play factors in the aversion of another Depression. However, I will say one major contributing factor (in averting another Depression) was the post war deal put in place that made the US Dollar the world reserve petro dollar of choice. Up until very recently sovereign nations could only buy oil with US currency. This combined with the Federal Reserve's ability to infuse dollars no longer attached to the Gold Standard into the market at will, created a cohesive world economy (among allies of advanced nations) that has a one for all, all for one mentality. An economic MAD if you will (mutually assured destruction) - everyone is now "too big to fail", and thus no one is allowed to. We are seeing the natural evolution of this in the EU. And the inherent flaws. Germany is being forced into bailing out Greece and others to ensure their own economic security. If Germany fails in its task and the EU falls, then it will be incumbent upon the US - as it's already being said - to put together a bail out package for Western Europe. And I think the cost of that plan, combined with the progressive policies that Europe will not cease (its part of their modern culture at this point) means we have an economic day of reckoning ahead of us that will make the Great Depression seem like a mash note in comparison.
There has been no depression since FDR. I can not deny that. But because the time lines correspond, it does not mean one caused the other. The few New Deal programs that survived, surely, could not be the source of preventing another world wide economic catastrophe (the rest of the world affected by the Great Depression has neither suffered a repeat, and they haven't New Deal to point to). I should add, I think the economic mutually assured destruction the allied nations (Cold War allies) entered into post WWII was as much to prevent another war on and amongst Continental Europe as it was to prevent another economic collapse. Much like US politicians (after FDR died) got together and quickly (in Constitutional terms) passed the 22nd Amendment, almost to say, "whoa, lets not do that again", I think post WWII the Cold War allies brought their economies together in a sense saying that European conflicts rarely stay confined to their continent, lets not allow that to happen again. If our economies are all codependent, invasion is less attractive. After FDR the cyclical invasions of neighbor nations in Western Europe also ceased, and I do not assign New Deal credit for this either. I do, however, assign FDR credit for being the CIC that won the war. The immensity of that achievement can not be discounted. It is, as I have conceded in the past, enough for anyone to legitimately praise his tenure as an overall success (even though I would disagree).
After all, if you don't win the war the rest of this is academic ... and in German.
I'm off to purchase a suitable frame now.
Well my friend, my only concern is now is that I will be forced to develop a deep seeded hatred for the Twins in order to match the passion of this debate. I find that prospect particularly alarming given this means I would be forced to endure hours of televised baseball games.
Concession accepted.
I wanted to make mention of something, and I'm not blowing smoke up your backside. I've heard from various conservatives (pick your title) whom were rabid leftists in their youth. And each of them strike me as men willing to be intellectually honest enough to examine the evidence, hence their conversion in thought and position. They've all been thoughtful, intelligent, and able to prosecute their conservative arguments better as a convert than their counterparts whom simply "grew up" that way. I'm not patronizing you, I wouldn't do that. I want to simply say that you are no exception.
And speaking to the "new incarnations" of this same debate, I sensed over the last three years (and Jambo articulated this to me as well), that there was an opportunity to reopen this debate based on how rabidly disillusioned you have become with large (versus small, obviously) government. And that's the key here - the ability to honestly gauge what is working and what is not. And in my view what works is adhering to the process (defined as fidelity to the Constitution) rather than concerning ourselves with the inequalities in results leftists so frequently rail against. And in your critique of Obama these last years I know you have had to go back and cite historical examples to prosecute your argument on why his infidelity to the Constitution does not work. This naturally lead me to a new avenue of attack - "why then do you think New Deal did?"
In my opinion, in crafting the Constitution, the Founders were interested in process, not results. If we follow their lead - if we allow the process they set in place to work - we will not have a perfect society, we will have unequal results. And I think that is the struggle for Progressives. They, well intentioned though they may be, desire to build a perfect society using imperfect men. It's not achievable. And destruction often is the result of their efforts. The process, not results were what mattered from George Washington to Grover Cleveland (a generalization, but a warranted one I believe). Woodrow Wilson represented a break with the Constitution and its' restraining view on government. In Wilson's opinion government did not merely exist to protect Rights: "We are not bound to adhere to the doctrines held by the signers of the Declaration of Independence... The limited government enshrined in the in both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution may have been an advance for the Founders, but society has evolved since then. " In contrast, Cleveland vetoed 414 congressional spending bills alone in his first term to stop what was in his view "unconstitutional spending." Wilson, unlike his predeccessor(s), intended to be a President working with a "living Constitution." And these ideas - that one man could shape his nation to fit the times - weren't limited to America, it purveyed much of organized civilization (my definition for the West plus Russia) for much of the first half of the 20th Century. Wilson regulated overseas shipping rates, subsidized loans to farmers (which is still going on), instituted the 8 hour work day for railroad workers, resegregated the military (and there hasn't been such a rabid a racist in the White House since, perhaps ever), and he implemented the progressive income tax starting at 1% and ending with 77% - all in an attempt to reorganize society to fit this progressive world view: that utopia was achievable with the right administrators. FDR served in the Wilson administration. I believe he bought into this "beneficent government" world view, and the Great Depression undoubtedly served to offer him proof that it was not only necessary, but just. If you listen to the footage of Roosevelt's first swearing in (oh yeah, you want to party? Hang out with me on You Tube - "fun times" as my kids say with both eye brows raised), Chief Justice Charles Evan Hughes noticeably emphasizes the words, "promise to support the Constitution of the United States." Roosevelt responded in kind, elevating his voice to match Hughes’s. Later Roosevelt said he wanted to yell at Hughes, "Yes, but it's but it's the Constitution as I understand it ..." And therein lies the doom - the living, breathing version of our foundiung document.
I'll get to your "no depression since FDR" query in a moment, but I want to say in summary that I see a common theme from Wilson, to FDR, to LBJ, to Carter, to Obama. They each thought the Constitution was outdated, or inefficient, or inadequate, a charter of negative liberties, something we should no longer be bound by, and no longer up to the task. Starting with Wilson we see the framework set up within the US mindset of a "beneficent government", of an emphasis on new Rights rather than Natural Rights. The "success" of FDR in this regard (and from a progressive's point of view) is that he embedded such polices into the American landscape and psychic so much so that later office holders, even those who hold an opposite view of the Constitution, were too scared to dismantle them, sometimes, as you've pointed out, even expanding them both directly and in theme. But I think since Wilson each time this interpretation was the chief oar rowing our policy, the darkest chapters of American economic history over the last 100 years were written (or made worse). And given you seemed to rapidly be coming to that conclusion yourself as of late, in your critique’s of Obama, I thought it might be time to see if you'd apply that conclusion to New Deal and FDR. It seems you have. And I feel like I was just pardoned for a crime I didn't commit ... hehehe. As I told Jambo the other day, "With most people whom I can't bring around I have the luxury of shrugging them off as ignorant or dense ... I have no such luxury with your brother."
****
No Depression since FDR ... undeniably true. Bear in mind, I'm no professional economist, so the attempt to describe the 80 years since WWII, and why their has been no depression, all in a brief post is undoubtedly the height of hubris. So large in fact, even my ego did a double take as I sat down to answer this question ... but as that has never stopped us before "ensign, engage engines."
I sincerely believe that what FDR put in place in terms of the manipulation of the money supply and the FDIC - which in all honesty is the ideological precursor to bail outs for Bear Sterns et al (a federal floor for failure established, "here and no further") - was a cure that will eventually prove itself worse than the disease. I'm forecasting now. Now certainly, you don't expect for me to account for the last 80 years of US and world economic policy, all of which play factors in the aversion of another Depression. However, I will say one major contributing factor (in averting another Depression) was the post war deal put in place that made the US Dollar the world reserve petro dollar of choice. Up until very recently sovereign nations could only buy oil with US currency. This combined with the Federal Reserve's ability to infuse dollars no longer attached to the Gold Standard into the market at will, created a cohesive world economy (among allies of advanced nations) that has a one for all, all for one mentality. An economic MAD if you will (mutually assured destruction) - everyone is now "too big to fail", and thus no one is allowed to. We are seeing the natural evolution of this in the EU. And the inherent flaws. Germany is being forced into bailing out Greece and others to ensure their own economic security. If Germany fails in its task and the EU falls, then it will be incumbent upon the US - as it's already being said - to put together a bail out package for Western Europe. And I think the cost of that plan, combined with the progressive policies that Europe will not cease (its part of their modern culture at this point) means we have an economic day of reckoning ahead of us that will make the Great Depression seem like a mash note in comparison.
There has been no depression since FDR. I can not deny that. But because the time lines correspond, it does not mean one caused the other. The few New Deal programs that survived, surely, could not be the source of preventing another world wide economic catastrophe (the rest of the world affected by the Great Depression has neither suffered a repeat, and they haven't New Deal to point to). I should add, I think the economic mutually assured destruction the allied nations (Cold War allies) entered into post WWII was as much to prevent another war on and amongst Continental Europe as it was to prevent another economic collapse. Much like US politicians (after FDR died) got together and quickly (in Constitutional terms) passed the 22nd Amendment, almost to say, "whoa, lets not do that again", I think post WWII the Cold War allies brought their economies together in a sense saying that European conflicts rarely stay confined to their continent, lets not allow that to happen again. If our economies are all codependent, invasion is less attractive. After FDR the cyclical invasions of neighbor nations in Western Europe also ceased, and I do not assign New Deal credit for this either. I do, however, assign FDR credit for being the CIC that won the war. The immensity of that achievement can not be discounted. It is, as I have conceded in the past, enough for anyone to legitimately praise his tenure as an overall success (even though I would disagree).
After all, if you don't win the war the rest of this is academic ... and in German.
I'm off to purchase a suitable frame now.
Whew... tough morning.
Man, the schedule around here is getting tough this late in the school year... with the oldest boy working till 9 PM three nights a week, the 9 year old going to a new school and Liz and I both working full time. Can't seem to find a routine anymore...
I got home and read Ryan's two posts. If I hadn't been so tired, I'd have posted already, but here's my thoughts:
On Hoover: I can't argue with anything you said... at all. I even made the point myself once that New Deal "began" with the last two years of Hoover's administration. The measures he took (via a more than liberal Congress) did absolutely nothing to turn the economy around... and he was starting what FDR would finish.
If I had to defend my rampant generalization (something I blame you for doing far too often, I know) about GOP "hands off" policies moving into the 1930s, it would be that it was a half-assed effort, at best. Hoover never budged from his "balanced budget" position as President, and too much "progressive" policy would make that impossible (even though it was impossible at that point, anyway). However, I can't deny that this is a weak argument.
On Morgenthau: You picked the right New Dealer to use as an example of the disillusioned, and I will even go so far as to say he wasn't the most prominent. FDR's first Vice President (John Nance Garner) also had changed his mind almost completely by the second term ('36 to '40), and fought the President on almost everything he wanted done. Want to find opposition to New Deal from within the Administration? Look at some of his quotes...
Lest you forget, I don't need to go far to see real opposition to New Deal... my paternal grandfather never had a good thing to say about any of it, to the best of my recollection. Even mentioning the tools he still had with "WPA" burned into their handles was enough to start an anti-FDR rant from Ray H. I know it wasn't a 100% support base for his efforts, no doubt... but his popularity then and in subsequent decades has shown his legacy to be pretty solid.
On the Second Bill of Rights: I'm no fan of this SotU speech... lets get this straight right now. I don't doubt for a minute that the man held pretty strong, leftist leanings... and that (real or imagined) successes in his efforts after his first term, whether due to policies or not, bolstered and built up these leanings and reinforced the idea that he could do more. By 1944, when he gave the speech, he was very very ill... too ill by far to have gone to the Yalta conference, and his closest advisers (even one that went to my high school, Admiral William D. Leahy) voiced real concern that he was not capable of making important decisions.
If I have any response, it is that nothing really came of the Second Bill of Rights. He gave the speech, it was well received at the time... but I think most people understood that the "rights" he was advocating for were not "inherent" rights like those defined in the Bill of Rights. Everything within the list he made in 1944 can be "protected" by guarantying the "equal opportunity" for, rather than the guaranteed provision of by the Fedeal government... and most were already equally available to white, Protestant males in American society then anyway.
On ending this once and for all: Nothing I seem to say ever seems to be considered by Ryan in this debate. I can't point to programs like FDIC, the SEC, WPA, TVA, Golden Gate or any of the other "success" stories of the New Deal without admitting the failure of NRA, REA, or the rest of the alphabet soup stuff, yet he can ring off failure upon failure without acknowledging any successes at all. No explanation has been given as to why no depression-level economic crisis has happened since 1932, in spite of continued "New Deal" policies rolling all the way into the 1980s and beyond. Short-term success in areas like temporary employment for 8 million people and the development of national infrastructure unparalleled since the railroad boom of the 1880s mean nothing if the bill to pay for them couldn't be squared away before the end of the fiscal year. When I question the continued "New Deal" efforts throughout the Eisenhower administrations, it is either ignored or dismissed as "apples and oranges" even though the level of deficit spending on a domestic agenda is directly comparable to FDR's and it can be coupled with a "boom economy" from '52 through '58. Dollar for dollar, Reagan spent more in a peacetime economy than FDR did, but he did it with lower taxes and increased revenue (and it was a far smaller percentage of the GDP... I know). I am routinely baffled by the changing "requirements" of the debate... not entirely Ryan's fault, since the premise of the debate change with each incarnation, but we do seem to flash back and forth over and over again.
I cannot adequately prove that FDR's New Deal policies DIDN'T prolong the era of the Great Depression, but I feel I have given adequate proof that the depression that started in Oct of 1929 was OVER AND DONE by 1934, and after that the nation suffered nothing more than recessions that never lasted more than one year. I can no more show that the New Deal didn't retard the recovery than Ryan can show me that it did nothing... but I cannot deny that certain particulars within the New Deal structure were harmful, wasteful or counter-productive. The excessive taxes certainly make his point beyond my ability to deny.
More importantly, no "progressive" plan since New Deal has shown me that it worked... not the Great Society, not the War on Poverty, nothing. I cannot point to a "progressive" plan prior to New Deal, either, that would show any real success. I am not a progressive... nor am I a liberal, and if I cannot adequately define and defend what worked in 1932 but hasn't worked before or since, then I am forced by rational and adult conscience to admit that I cannot continue the debate and must concede the point entirely.
That said, I have to ask that, given my concession of the argument that New Deal "worked"... I'm going to ask that Ryan answers this simple question: Without giving FDR any of the "credit" for success (since I know none will be given) in the 1930s... something did work. What was it? What pearl among the swill contributed to the end of the "boom-bust" cycle the US had been functioning under for the 140 years prior to New Deal? Something must have... it can't simply have ended with no contributing factor... so what program or policy did what needed to be done, in spite of FDR rather than because of him?
I ask because the era of New Deal continued until the 1980s... and the US economy reached heights unimagined in that period of time... and every President after FDR continued the paradigm he started. How is that possible, if everything FDR did was wrong and contrary to sound economic policy?
I got home and read Ryan's two posts. If I hadn't been so tired, I'd have posted already, but here's my thoughts:
On Hoover: I can't argue with anything you said... at all. I even made the point myself once that New Deal "began" with the last two years of Hoover's administration. The measures he took (via a more than liberal Congress) did absolutely nothing to turn the economy around... and he was starting what FDR would finish.
If I had to defend my rampant generalization (something I blame you for doing far too often, I know) about GOP "hands off" policies moving into the 1930s, it would be that it was a half-assed effort, at best. Hoover never budged from his "balanced budget" position as President, and too much "progressive" policy would make that impossible (even though it was impossible at that point, anyway). However, I can't deny that this is a weak argument.
On Morgenthau: You picked the right New Dealer to use as an example of the disillusioned, and I will even go so far as to say he wasn't the most prominent. FDR's first Vice President (John Nance Garner) also had changed his mind almost completely by the second term ('36 to '40), and fought the President on almost everything he wanted done. Want to find opposition to New Deal from within the Administration? Look at some of his quotes...
Lest you forget, I don't need to go far to see real opposition to New Deal... my paternal grandfather never had a good thing to say about any of it, to the best of my recollection. Even mentioning the tools he still had with "WPA" burned into their handles was enough to start an anti-FDR rant from Ray H. I know it wasn't a 100% support base for his efforts, no doubt... but his popularity then and in subsequent decades has shown his legacy to be pretty solid.
On the Second Bill of Rights: I'm no fan of this SotU speech... lets get this straight right now. I don't doubt for a minute that the man held pretty strong, leftist leanings... and that (real or imagined) successes in his efforts after his first term, whether due to policies or not, bolstered and built up these leanings and reinforced the idea that he could do more. By 1944, when he gave the speech, he was very very ill... too ill by far to have gone to the Yalta conference, and his closest advisers (even one that went to my high school, Admiral William D. Leahy) voiced real concern that he was not capable of making important decisions.
If I have any response, it is that nothing really came of the Second Bill of Rights. He gave the speech, it was well received at the time... but I think most people understood that the "rights" he was advocating for were not "inherent" rights like those defined in the Bill of Rights. Everything within the list he made in 1944 can be "protected" by guarantying the "equal opportunity" for, rather than the guaranteed provision of by the Fedeal government... and most were already equally available to white, Protestant males in American society then anyway.
On ending this once and for all: Nothing I seem to say ever seems to be considered by Ryan in this debate. I can't point to programs like FDIC, the SEC, WPA, TVA, Golden Gate or any of the other "success" stories of the New Deal without admitting the failure of NRA, REA, or the rest of the alphabet soup stuff, yet he can ring off failure upon failure without acknowledging any successes at all. No explanation has been given as to why no depression-level economic crisis has happened since 1932, in spite of continued "New Deal" policies rolling all the way into the 1980s and beyond. Short-term success in areas like temporary employment for 8 million people and the development of national infrastructure unparalleled since the railroad boom of the 1880s mean nothing if the bill to pay for them couldn't be squared away before the end of the fiscal year. When I question the continued "New Deal" efforts throughout the Eisenhower administrations, it is either ignored or dismissed as "apples and oranges" even though the level of deficit spending on a domestic agenda is directly comparable to FDR's and it can be coupled with a "boom economy" from '52 through '58. Dollar for dollar, Reagan spent more in a peacetime economy than FDR did, but he did it with lower taxes and increased revenue (and it was a far smaller percentage of the GDP... I know). I am routinely baffled by the changing "requirements" of the debate... not entirely Ryan's fault, since the premise of the debate change with each incarnation, but we do seem to flash back and forth over and over again.
I cannot adequately prove that FDR's New Deal policies DIDN'T prolong the era of the Great Depression, but I feel I have given adequate proof that the depression that started in Oct of 1929 was OVER AND DONE by 1934, and after that the nation suffered nothing more than recessions that never lasted more than one year. I can no more show that the New Deal didn't retard the recovery than Ryan can show me that it did nothing... but I cannot deny that certain particulars within the New Deal structure were harmful, wasteful or counter-productive. The excessive taxes certainly make his point beyond my ability to deny.
More importantly, no "progressive" plan since New Deal has shown me that it worked... not the Great Society, not the War on Poverty, nothing. I cannot point to a "progressive" plan prior to New Deal, either, that would show any real success. I am not a progressive... nor am I a liberal, and if I cannot adequately define and defend what worked in 1932 but hasn't worked before or since, then I am forced by rational and adult conscience to admit that I cannot continue the debate and must concede the point entirely.
That said, I have to ask that, given my concession of the argument that New Deal "worked"... I'm going to ask that Ryan answers this simple question: Without giving FDR any of the "credit" for success (since I know none will be given) in the 1930s... something did work. What was it? What pearl among the swill contributed to the end of the "boom-bust" cycle the US had been functioning under for the 140 years prior to New Deal? Something must have... it can't simply have ended with no contributing factor... so what program or policy did what needed to be done, in spite of FDR rather than because of him?
I ask because the era of New Deal continued until the 1980s... and the US economy reached heights unimagined in that period of time... and every President after FDR continued the paradigm he started. How is that possible, if everything FDR did was wrong and contrary to sound economic policy?
Monday, April 16, 2012
uncanny
I was thinking ...
If you weren't one to recognize the dated verbage, would you be able to tell the two of these "lists" apart? One is from the January 11th, 1944 SoTU address by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The other is Occupy Wall Street's unofficial (they've yet to have their "General Assembly" - I know, wtf? - vote on it, but it's been submitted) list of "demands."
For your reading pleasure:
Demand one: Restoration of the living wage. This demand can only be met by ending “Freetrade” by re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market to level the playing field for domestic family farming and domestic manufacturing as most nations that are dumping cheap products onto the American market have radical wage and environmental regulation advantages. Another policy that must be instituted is raise the minimum wage to twenty dollars an hr.
Demand two: Institute a universal single payer healthcare system. To do this all private insurers must be banned from the healthcare market as their only effect on the health of patients is to take money away from doctors, nurses and hospitals preventing them from doing their jobs and hand that money to wall st. investors.
Demand three: Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment.
Demand four: Free college education.
Demand five: Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand.
Demand six: One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now.
Demand seven: One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of America’s nuclear power plants.
Demand eight: Racial and gender equal rights amendment.
Demand nine: Open borders migration. anyone can travel anywhere to work and live.
Demand ten: Bring American elections up to international standards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of an independent and party observers system.
Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the “Books.” World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the “Books.” And I don’t mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.
Demand twelve: Outlaw all credit reporting agencies.
Demand thirteen: Allow all workers to sign a ballot at any time during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents their yeah or nay to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or to form a union.
These demands will create so many jobs it will be completely impossible to fill them without an open borders policy.
*****
"It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.
This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.
As our nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.
We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. Necessitous men are not free men. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.
In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.
Among these are:
The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education.
All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.
America's own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for all our citizens.
For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world."
WOW! Those are shockingly similar. And look at what FDR was advocating. Are we to believe that the ideology which produced this address was somehow NOT the ideology behind New Deal policy? How could policies birthed of this radical ideology succeed? You know these sort of societal "guarantees" do not work.
Titus, if any other man, and I mean ANY other man were to say these things - let alone say them to the nation as a sitting president in a SoTU address - you would call him an out and out socialist. At the very least you would say he embodies an ideology that history has proven is doomed to fail, no matter the reason or crisis presented as justification for their attempt. Yet you describe the policy agenda which such an ideology, such a man, yielded as a "success" in bringing about economic recovery between 1933-1941. I find that stunning.
By the by, I seem to recall - when trying to differentiate FDR from Obama - the following from your post entitled "Just one more."
"He proposed the "second bill of rights" in 1944 to further guarantee the economic and fiscal equality of all Americans as they conducted their lives and followed the "pursuit of happiness"... but he didn't ever suggest that the Constitution was "flawed"..."
Really? Read that intro to the second bill of rights again. Maybe it's just me but I tend to read "inadequate", and the general tone he was setting there, as flawed. And you wrote that this bill of rights was simply to "further guarantee the economic equality of all Americans as they conducted their lives..." ? YOU wrote that, it wasn't a quote from this address. Dammit man, THERE IS NO SUCH GUARANTEE! THINK about what you're defending. THINK about this SOTU ... how is this sentiment any different than Obama's? Are you kidding? It's different only in that Obama doesn't have the balls, as PoTUS, to flat out say the Constitution isn't up to the job, name a list of things that would be, then go about enacting policies and attempting to pack courts to see those policies through. FDR disagreed with this nation's charter as founded, period. HE SAID SO. He wanted to "progress past", (hello, progressive) the Constitution in every measurable way. In fact, his list damn near looks like the Soviet Constitution! Can you imagine what the post-war boom would have looked like had he lived and had a chance to further implent this second bill of rights? My God, it takes your breath away.
Flawed, inadequate, not up to the task, a charter of negative liberties ... it's all the same. They are the same. Yet one gets the Titus thumbs up, and one doesn't. Well, I think I know what your thumb's up these days (kidding). Just yield already, at least on this point - Obama and FDR are cut from the same ideological, wealth redistributionist, planned economy, high tax, the Constitution isn't up to the crisis we face, CLOTH.
If you weren't one to recognize the dated verbage, would you be able to tell the two of these "lists" apart? One is from the January 11th, 1944 SoTU address by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The other is Occupy Wall Street's unofficial (they've yet to have their "General Assembly" - I know, wtf? - vote on it, but it's been submitted) list of "demands."
For your reading pleasure:
Demand one: Restoration of the living wage. This demand can only be met by ending “Freetrade” by re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market to level the playing field for domestic family farming and domestic manufacturing as most nations that are dumping cheap products onto the American market have radical wage and environmental regulation advantages. Another policy that must be instituted is raise the minimum wage to twenty dollars an hr.
Demand two: Institute a universal single payer healthcare system. To do this all private insurers must be banned from the healthcare market as their only effect on the health of patients is to take money away from doctors, nurses and hospitals preventing them from doing their jobs and hand that money to wall st. investors.
Demand three: Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment.
Demand four: Free college education.
Demand five: Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand.
Demand six: One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now.
Demand seven: One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of America’s nuclear power plants.
Demand eight: Racial and gender equal rights amendment.
Demand nine: Open borders migration. anyone can travel anywhere to work and live.
Demand ten: Bring American elections up to international standards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of an independent and party observers system.
Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the “Books.” World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the “Books.” And I don’t mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.
Demand twelve: Outlaw all credit reporting agencies.
Demand thirteen: Allow all workers to sign a ballot at any time during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents their yeah or nay to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or to form a union.
These demands will create so many jobs it will be completely impossible to fill them without an open borders policy.
*****
"It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.
This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.
As our nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.
We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. Necessitous men are not free men. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.
In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.
Among these are:
The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education.
All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.
America's own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for all our citizens.
For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world."
WOW! Those are shockingly similar. And look at what FDR was advocating. Are we to believe that the ideology which produced this address was somehow NOT the ideology behind New Deal policy? How could policies birthed of this radical ideology succeed? You know these sort of societal "guarantees" do not work.
Titus, if any other man, and I mean ANY other man were to say these things - let alone say them to the nation as a sitting president in a SoTU address - you would call him an out and out socialist. At the very least you would say he embodies an ideology that history has proven is doomed to fail, no matter the reason or crisis presented as justification for their attempt. Yet you describe the policy agenda which such an ideology, such a man, yielded as a "success" in bringing about economic recovery between 1933-1941. I find that stunning.
By the by, I seem to recall - when trying to differentiate FDR from Obama - the following from your post entitled "Just one more."
"He proposed the "second bill of rights" in 1944 to further guarantee the economic and fiscal equality of all Americans as they conducted their lives and followed the "pursuit of happiness"... but he didn't ever suggest that the Constitution was "flawed"..."
Really? Read that intro to the second bill of rights again. Maybe it's just me but I tend to read "inadequate", and the general tone he was setting there, as flawed. And you wrote that this bill of rights was simply to "further guarantee the economic equality of all Americans as they conducted their lives..." ? YOU wrote that, it wasn't a quote from this address. Dammit man, THERE IS NO SUCH GUARANTEE! THINK about what you're defending. THINK about this SOTU ... how is this sentiment any different than Obama's? Are you kidding? It's different only in that Obama doesn't have the balls, as PoTUS, to flat out say the Constitution isn't up to the job, name a list of things that would be, then go about enacting policies and attempting to pack courts to see those policies through. FDR disagreed with this nation's charter as founded, period. HE SAID SO. He wanted to "progress past", (hello, progressive) the Constitution in every measurable way. In fact, his list damn near looks like the Soviet Constitution! Can you imagine what the post-war boom would have looked like had he lived and had a chance to further implent this second bill of rights? My God, it takes your breath away.
Flawed, inadequate, not up to the task, a charter of negative liberties ... it's all the same. They are the same. Yet one gets the Titus thumbs up, and one doesn't. Well, I think I know what your thumb's up these days (kidding). Just yield already, at least on this point - Obama and FDR are cut from the same ideological, wealth redistributionist, planned economy, high tax, the Constitution isn't up to the crisis we face, CLOTH.
"We never made good on our promises."
There is so much here to deal with (forgive the pun), so much failure that we could do entire books worth of posts. But I'll stop everything and touch on what I see as the obvious ...
How could you be this wrong about Hoover? He almost single handily made the Depression twice as bad by abandoning his own principles (more on this below). He was anything but "hands off." Towards the end of his term he was raising taxes and tariffs, and after the crash he signed Smoot-Hawley into law, which implemented stifling embargoes on foreign imports in a misguided attempt to protect domestic businesses. In fact it was retaliatory to Europeans, and their purchases of US farming goods (a third of the American work force) all but dried up. It was a disaster from the very first day, & FDR continued it. I akin this hands on mistake to FDR's oppressive tax rates. Between the two can you imagine trying to start a new business? The word daunting doesn't cover it. Secondly, Hoover set the public works (as relief) standard, it is the Hoover Dam after all. You act as if everyone before FDR was just sitting around until he got there. It's clear that FDR came in and CONTINUED and EXPANDED Hoover's post crash policies. And this is particularly sad given they had a recent precedent, the Depression at the end of Wilson's administration, to follow. Harding came in & cut taxes, the top marginal rate went from 73% to 24%, and he actually shrank the size of government (not in the rate of growth, the size). The result? The Roaring 20's, in which the household accumulation of luxury items like telephones, refrigerators, & electricity skyrocketed.
The minimum wage (a New Deal policy) arguably cost millions of jobs, by itself. There were immediate lay offs after its' implementation, and these were people who thought themselves "lucky" to have survived 1929 with a job. I was wrong about the 100% tax rate FDR requested from congress. I said it was on all wages earned as income over 250k. In fact, it was for all wages earned over 25k. Congress baulked and reduced it to 90%. Hoover introduced, in the first year of the Depression, an "emergency" Excise Tax. Whereas a tariff is a tax on imports, an excise tax is a tariff on commodities manufactured within the nation. It's usually applied to vices. For example prior to 1929 80% of all excise taxes were collected from tobacco. Hoover and the Democrats in congress instituted it on cars, movie tickets, radios, phonographs, telegrams, long distance phone calls, cameras, bank checks, stock transfers, cosmetics, yachts, jewelery, furs, and a new one cent per gallon tax on gasoline. It should be noted, economists regard excise taxes as regressive - hitting lower income earners the hardest. This is essentially a usage tax, or the VAT tax (value added tax) advocated today (and used in the UK). FDR kept the "emergency" excise tax (which grew to include other commodities) and renewed it almost every year he was in office. Lets add the new 1% tax on employers for Social Security (by the way, saying that FDR wasn't the one who screwed it up later is like saying the Titanic had a great maiden voyage up until the time of the ice berg - it was his program, his course that he set with the inherint "Ponzi" aspects built in). The Revenue Act of 1935 was a more progressive tax on corporate earnings, and in his war on "big business", FDR - in both rhetoric and policy - dwarfs Obama. You should read some of Roosevelt's SOTU addresses, they sound familiar. In the 1936 address he called business leaders an old "resplendent economic autocracy." That they were fighting his "new instruments of public power." He added, "In the hands of a people's government this power is wholesome and proper. But in the hands of political puppets of an economic autocracy such power would provide shackles for the liberties of the people." There's you "free from want", or need. This was in response to the growing opposition of heavy corporate taxation. In 1935 the NMA (National Manufacturing Association) allied against FDR with the stated goal of "ending New Deal." The DuPonts and other businesses of note formed a "Liberty League" to oppose him. Let me ask you - do they know more or less about creating jobs and expanding business than the man whom proposed a "2nd Bill of Rights?" Just curious. FDR was the first, and most rabid, class warrior. FDR advanced his war on business - and this is a BIG one. He levied a tax on all undistributed corporate profits. It was meant to force corporations into paying out those profits as income so his progressive tax system could get to them. The problem is those coffers held the monies which all businesses use to expand, do R&D, buy new machinery, and save for the future. In another address Roosevelt stated about that new tax that it would be, "Made harder for big corporations to retain the huge undistributed profits with which they gobble up small business." The problem is all small businesses want to become big. And this tax prevented (or at least hindered) their expansion. A Forbes poll from the same year reported that 90% of business executives (both big and small) wanted a repeal of the tax. I ask again - did they or FDR know more about creating a healthy economy and expanding jobs? How many times does the word "tax" appear this post alone? Titus, you can not simply say, "well he got the taxes end of Keynesian economics wrong, but it was an overall success." WRONG - you can't get THAT part of Keynsian economics wrong and achieve success under the Keynesian model, it does not work that way. How many administrations, who lowered taxes, must there be to prove this? These taxes devastated economic growth, you musn't skip past them as an acknowledged failure and move on to the Golden Gate bridge. It's bigger than that simple acknowledgement. It was the poison that infected the entire body. You can't say, yeah he's got cancer, but we healed that broken leg, so the overall hospital visit was a success. By the way, if FDR's continual reelection is a source of "proof" that he was popular with "somebody", as you put it, do the midterms in which Republicans won overwhelming margins not reveal his unpopularity? Those same "someones" were voting for them as well. I'm just asking, like the 2010 elections of our era.
Moving on, it's also arguable (irrefutable in my book) that the AAA hurt farming. It guaranteed a floor price of certain crops (notably wheat and cotton). So what did farmers do? Switch to those crops, causing food shortages in other areas. This is the result of government intrusion into the market place - the law of unintended consequences.
The NRA for the first time gave the government the power to "approve" with legal force how much a factory could expand, what wages were to be paid, the number of hours to be worked, and the prices of all the products within the given industry. These are the things Adam Smith wrote explicitly against. FDR himself noted (about a program you said failed): "History will probably record the National Industrial Recovery Act (later shortened to NRA) as the most important and far-reaching legislation ever enacted by the American Congress." The 540 codes that ensued tended to raise prices, raise wages, reduce working hours and and remove competition. Now Titus, the NRA (if I remember correctly) is something you put in the "falied" category. FDR considered it his centerpiece - how could New Deal be an overall successful when the centerpiece failed? And I say "failed" before having even gotten to the Constituionality of these programs.
Now I can go on and on and on - the Air Mail Act that fell short, the FERA Camps, Court Packing... The clear picture is that the man tried to single handily manage the economy. YOU KNOW THAT DOESN'T WORK. And I haven't even scratched the surface of all the other ripe meat within New Deal. The sum total effect on the working (or not working) man's most important number - unemployment - was clear. In 1931 unemployment was 16.3% or 8,020,000 million Americans. In 1939 it averaged for the year 17.2%, or 9,480,000 Americans. After all the spending, all the free market manipulation (and I didn't even get to the commerce clause perversions), after all the attempts and programs, all the new taxes collected, and expansion of Washington oversight with a litany of new departments, there we sat, at a higher unemployment rate 8 years later. You can play this debate game of "it must have worked because there's been no depression in the 80 years since", but that is not our standard of "worked." The standard we set down at the onset of this debate, years ago, was whether New Deal policies (& their ilk from Hoover) caused a national economic recovery, pulling us out of the era known as the Great Depression, or did WWII? In other words, would the era have continued without the advent of war? I think the evidence on that score is clear ... and I bet in 1939 about 9,480,000 people would agree with me. Well, 9,480,000 ... and one (see below).
I'll close with this:
"We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises ... I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when it started ... And an enormous debt to boot."
-Henry Morgenthau
He was a longtime confidant of FDR, one the few men that could look FDR in the face, according to Eleanor Roosevelt, and tell him he was wrong. And for 10 years he served not just as FDR's close friend, but his Secretary of the Treasury. Titus, he was an architect of New Deal. Those words were spoken by Morgenthau, the sitting Secretary of the Treasury, to his fellow Democrats in May of 1939 in his testimony at a Congressional hearing held by the House Ways and Means Committee.
Do you know better than he? Surely even you don't have an ego that big.
How could you be this wrong about Hoover? He almost single handily made the Depression twice as bad by abandoning his own principles (more on this below). He was anything but "hands off." Towards the end of his term he was raising taxes and tariffs, and after the crash he signed Smoot-Hawley into law, which implemented stifling embargoes on foreign imports in a misguided attempt to protect domestic businesses. In fact it was retaliatory to Europeans, and their purchases of US farming goods (a third of the American work force) all but dried up. It was a disaster from the very first day, & FDR continued it. I akin this hands on mistake to FDR's oppressive tax rates. Between the two can you imagine trying to start a new business? The word daunting doesn't cover it. Secondly, Hoover set the public works (as relief) standard, it is the Hoover Dam after all. You act as if everyone before FDR was just sitting around until he got there. It's clear that FDR came in and CONTINUED and EXPANDED Hoover's post crash policies. And this is particularly sad given they had a recent precedent, the Depression at the end of Wilson's administration, to follow. Harding came in & cut taxes, the top marginal rate went from 73% to 24%, and he actually shrank the size of government (not in the rate of growth, the size). The result? The Roaring 20's, in which the household accumulation of luxury items like telephones, refrigerators, & electricity skyrocketed.
The minimum wage (a New Deal policy) arguably cost millions of jobs, by itself. There were immediate lay offs after its' implementation, and these were people who thought themselves "lucky" to have survived 1929 with a job. I was wrong about the 100% tax rate FDR requested from congress. I said it was on all wages earned as income over 250k. In fact, it was for all wages earned over 25k. Congress baulked and reduced it to 90%. Hoover introduced, in the first year of the Depression, an "emergency" Excise Tax. Whereas a tariff is a tax on imports, an excise tax is a tariff on commodities manufactured within the nation. It's usually applied to vices. For example prior to 1929 80% of all excise taxes were collected from tobacco. Hoover and the Democrats in congress instituted it on cars, movie tickets, radios, phonographs, telegrams, long distance phone calls, cameras, bank checks, stock transfers, cosmetics, yachts, jewelery, furs, and a new one cent per gallon tax on gasoline. It should be noted, economists regard excise taxes as regressive - hitting lower income earners the hardest. This is essentially a usage tax, or the VAT tax (value added tax) advocated today (and used in the UK). FDR kept the "emergency" excise tax (which grew to include other commodities) and renewed it almost every year he was in office. Lets add the new 1% tax on employers for Social Security (by the way, saying that FDR wasn't the one who screwed it up later is like saying the Titanic had a great maiden voyage up until the time of the ice berg - it was his program, his course that he set with the inherint "Ponzi" aspects built in). The Revenue Act of 1935 was a more progressive tax on corporate earnings, and in his war on "big business", FDR - in both rhetoric and policy - dwarfs Obama. You should read some of Roosevelt's SOTU addresses, they sound familiar. In the 1936 address he called business leaders an old "resplendent economic autocracy." That they were fighting his "new instruments of public power." He added, "In the hands of a people's government this power is wholesome and proper. But in the hands of political puppets of an economic autocracy such power would provide shackles for the liberties of the people." There's you "free from want", or need. This was in response to the growing opposition of heavy corporate taxation. In 1935 the NMA (National Manufacturing Association) allied against FDR with the stated goal of "ending New Deal." The DuPonts and other businesses of note formed a "Liberty League" to oppose him. Let me ask you - do they know more or less about creating jobs and expanding business than the man whom proposed a "2nd Bill of Rights?" Just curious. FDR was the first, and most rabid, class warrior. FDR advanced his war on business - and this is a BIG one. He levied a tax on all undistributed corporate profits. It was meant to force corporations into paying out those profits as income so his progressive tax system could get to them. The problem is those coffers held the monies which all businesses use to expand, do R&D, buy new machinery, and save for the future. In another address Roosevelt stated about that new tax that it would be, "Made harder for big corporations to retain the huge undistributed profits with which they gobble up small business." The problem is all small businesses want to become big. And this tax prevented (or at least hindered) their expansion. A Forbes poll from the same year reported that 90% of business executives (both big and small) wanted a repeal of the tax. I ask again - did they or FDR know more about creating a healthy economy and expanding jobs? How many times does the word "tax" appear this post alone? Titus, you can not simply say, "well he got the taxes end of Keynesian economics wrong, but it was an overall success." WRONG - you can't get THAT part of Keynsian economics wrong and achieve success under the Keynesian model, it does not work that way. How many administrations, who lowered taxes, must there be to prove this? These taxes devastated economic growth, you musn't skip past them as an acknowledged failure and move on to the Golden Gate bridge. It's bigger than that simple acknowledgement. It was the poison that infected the entire body. You can't say, yeah he's got cancer, but we healed that broken leg, so the overall hospital visit was a success. By the way, if FDR's continual reelection is a source of "proof" that he was popular with "somebody", as you put it, do the midterms in which Republicans won overwhelming margins not reveal his unpopularity? Those same "someones" were voting for them as well. I'm just asking, like the 2010 elections of our era.
Moving on, it's also arguable (irrefutable in my book) that the AAA hurt farming. It guaranteed a floor price of certain crops (notably wheat and cotton). So what did farmers do? Switch to those crops, causing food shortages in other areas. This is the result of government intrusion into the market place - the law of unintended consequences.
The NRA for the first time gave the government the power to "approve" with legal force how much a factory could expand, what wages were to be paid, the number of hours to be worked, and the prices of all the products within the given industry. These are the things Adam Smith wrote explicitly against. FDR himself noted (about a program you said failed): "History will probably record the National Industrial Recovery Act (later shortened to NRA) as the most important and far-reaching legislation ever enacted by the American Congress." The 540 codes that ensued tended to raise prices, raise wages, reduce working hours and and remove competition. Now Titus, the NRA (if I remember correctly) is something you put in the "falied" category. FDR considered it his centerpiece - how could New Deal be an overall successful when the centerpiece failed? And I say "failed" before having even gotten to the Constituionality of these programs.
Now I can go on and on and on - the Air Mail Act that fell short, the FERA Camps, Court Packing... The clear picture is that the man tried to single handily manage the economy. YOU KNOW THAT DOESN'T WORK. And I haven't even scratched the surface of all the other ripe meat within New Deal. The sum total effect on the working (or not working) man's most important number - unemployment - was clear. In 1931 unemployment was 16.3% or 8,020,000 million Americans. In 1939 it averaged for the year 17.2%, or 9,480,000 Americans. After all the spending, all the free market manipulation (and I didn't even get to the commerce clause perversions), after all the attempts and programs, all the new taxes collected, and expansion of Washington oversight with a litany of new departments, there we sat, at a higher unemployment rate 8 years later. You can play this debate game of "it must have worked because there's been no depression in the 80 years since", but that is not our standard of "worked." The standard we set down at the onset of this debate, years ago, was whether New Deal policies (& their ilk from Hoover) caused a national economic recovery, pulling us out of the era known as the Great Depression, or did WWII? In other words, would the era have continued without the advent of war? I think the evidence on that score is clear ... and I bet in 1939 about 9,480,000 people would agree with me. Well, 9,480,000 ... and one (see below).
I'll close with this:
"We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises ... I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when it started ... And an enormous debt to boot."
-Henry Morgenthau
He was a longtime confidant of FDR, one the few men that could look FDR in the face, according to Eleanor Roosevelt, and tell him he was wrong. And for 10 years he served not just as FDR's close friend, but his Secretary of the Treasury. Titus, he was an architect of New Deal. Those words were spoken by Morgenthau, the sitting Secretary of the Treasury, to his fellow Democrats in May of 1939 in his testimony at a Congressional hearing held by the House Ways and Means Committee.
Do you know better than he? Surely even you don't have an ego that big.
To continue...
Got some sleep... feeling a little better and I didn't want to leave the post with the taste of "bitter sarcasm" lingering, as it was NOT my intention at all.
Ryan had a fair point I failed to address: "Now - you keep picking the few programs that worked, like SEC & FDIC. I know why. Its quicker to name what worked. The argument for me was never whether direct relief (CCC or FEMA) has a direct benefit for those in need. The argument was whether such things aide in pulling a nation out of a Depression."
Between the WPA, CCC, and the CWA, which I presume you include in the list of programs that "didn't work", some 14 million people were employed for between one and three years at basically minimum wage manual labor jobs. Did this cost the Federal government money? Yes, but rather than give a check to an empty hand, these programs put men to work on projects and efforts that are still serving us today... from city and State parks, to roads and railroad bridges, rural power line extensions, tree rows to keep soil from blowing away. Hungry, desperate people employed in meaningful labors that allowed the government to gain infrastructure support while those working take home earned income they can be proud of. Were these programs simply "hand outs" of cash or coupons that the poor and indigent could redeem at the cost of the American taxpayer, then I'd agree with you 100% that the New Deal programs were a failure... but if assistance had to be given (and I believe it did), then putting people to work for a cause like public infrastructure (for one example) seems better than simply handing out money. Which, by the way, is the paradigm today under Obama.
"If you want to argue the merits of SEC & FDIC, thats fine. But those are not the sum total of New Deal."
Then neither is Social Security, right? Because SS is failing now should not reflect on what it was intended to be under the FDR administrations, by your very own arguments. However, I know this is an aside, so back to your point...
"You seem to be saying - now this is important, dont just speed read through this - that the aide & works programs, price controls, intrusions via perversion of the commerce clause, oppressively high taxes & mammoth peace time deficit spending, all helped to see those hurting through the 30's until the war (thats my interpretation of "they all ended by 1943"). I'm not arguing whether they "helped" hungry people eat. It's fine to argue that New Deal helped see people through the Depression both directly & in terms of offering hope that at least someone was doing something to try & change things (which is what I assign as the source of both FDR & Obama's popularity at the ballot box). What I'm saying is that while New Deal helped see people through, through massive spending, it was a net loss for those same people (& the nation) because it prolonged the Depression era. "
This is an almost impossible point for me to argue... I can't defend a negative. You have, to the best of my knowledge, continually advocated a "hands off" approach for the government to have taken in response to the depression beginning in 1929, which is almost exactly what Hoover did beginning in 1929. However, the rate of bank failures grew each year until 1934, they did not fall. The number of unemployed grew each year until 1933, when 4 million went to work for one calendar year for the CWA... no drop in unemployment was recorded by the private sector. FDR's Three Rs (Relief, Recovery, and Reform) could have been only the ONE R... Relief for those most in need. Feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, care for the sick and elderly... but let the rest of indigent America wait for the laissez-faire policies of the administration to kick-start the economic engines that had so abruptly shut down. Doesn't that seem, even now, to be a "tough sell" to the voting public of the US of A?
More to my point is the fact that at least two "conservative" Presidents did exactly what you are saying is the worst thing to do in light of tough economic times... and that is deficit spend in a peace-time economy. Ike did it from '53 until '56 and Reagan did it from '82 until '86. The BIG difference here is that Reagan did it with a 28% top marginal tax bracket and increased the over-all revenue of the Fed by 17%, while Ike simply ran the budget into the red with the Interstate Highway effort while maintaining the 72% top marginal bracket.
Once again I come to the point I continually make... FDR did make mistakes (Yalta was a big one), and his BIGGEST by far was not listening to John Maynard Keyenes when it came to ending the cycles of boom-bust economics in the US. Ike didn't listen either... in fact, no one did until Reagan got into office, and then the paradigm changed and we saw the real effects of lower taxes equals more revenue equals more economic growth.
Hating the thought of greater government intervention is perfectly understandable on your part, I don't argue that at all. I'm only asking that a sense of rational objectivity be carried into the discussion about what intervention is warranted and what is not. If we are looking at a purely "constitutional" expansion of Presidential powers by a sitting President from the established limits as defined by the Constitution to what existed after that President left office, I don't think FDR even makes the top five. Washington was writing the handbook for the Presidency every morning he woke up. Jefferson was changing his mind about Executive authority on an almost daily basis, as he himself admitted. Madison threw out everything he held to be true and dear about the Oval Office prior to his election as soon as the shooting started in 1812. Jackson defied the Supreme Court of the United States of America, and on no fewer than two occasions... and he is still on the $20 bill. Lincoln was forced to become the "tyrant" the South so loudly accused him of being, setting precedent for executive power with each passing year of the Civil War.
FDR chose the path less traveled to answer the call of the people to end the depression and its effects... and I find it very hard to question the man for doing exactly what he was elected to do. If it didn't work or was illegal, it was ended and thrown out. If it did work and fulfilled its needed goals, it was ended and funds cut off by Congress. If it continued to work and fulfill its goals year after year, then it was perpetuated... until such time as the nation and its Congress could determine that it no longer works or fulfills a need, at which time it can be changed, continued or ended. THAT is the beauty of our system of government... and nothing that was put in place or remains in place from New Deal CAN NOT be changed or done away with whenever Congress feels it best to do so.
Ryan had a fair point I failed to address: "Now - you keep picking the few programs that worked, like SEC & FDIC. I know why. Its quicker to name what worked. The argument for me was never whether direct relief (CCC or FEMA) has a direct benefit for those in need. The argument was whether such things aide in pulling a nation out of a Depression."
Between the WPA, CCC, and the CWA, which I presume you include in the list of programs that "didn't work", some 14 million people were employed for between one and three years at basically minimum wage manual labor jobs. Did this cost the Federal government money? Yes, but rather than give a check to an empty hand, these programs put men to work on projects and efforts that are still serving us today... from city and State parks, to roads and railroad bridges, rural power line extensions, tree rows to keep soil from blowing away. Hungry, desperate people employed in meaningful labors that allowed the government to gain infrastructure support while those working take home earned income they can be proud of. Were these programs simply "hand outs" of cash or coupons that the poor and indigent could redeem at the cost of the American taxpayer, then I'd agree with you 100% that the New Deal programs were a failure... but if assistance had to be given (and I believe it did), then putting people to work for a cause like public infrastructure (for one example) seems better than simply handing out money. Which, by the way, is the paradigm today under Obama.
"If you want to argue the merits of SEC & FDIC, thats fine. But those are not the sum total of New Deal."
Then neither is Social Security, right? Because SS is failing now should not reflect on what it was intended to be under the FDR administrations, by your very own arguments. However, I know this is an aside, so back to your point...
"You seem to be saying - now this is important, dont just speed read through this - that the aide & works programs, price controls, intrusions via perversion of the commerce clause, oppressively high taxes & mammoth peace time deficit spending, all helped to see those hurting through the 30's until the war (thats my interpretation of "they all ended by 1943"). I'm not arguing whether they "helped" hungry people eat. It's fine to argue that New Deal helped see people through the Depression both directly & in terms of offering hope that at least someone was doing something to try & change things (which is what I assign as the source of both FDR & Obama's popularity at the ballot box). What I'm saying is that while New Deal helped see people through, through massive spending, it was a net loss for those same people (& the nation) because it prolonged the Depression era. "
This is an almost impossible point for me to argue... I can't defend a negative. You have, to the best of my knowledge, continually advocated a "hands off" approach for the government to have taken in response to the depression beginning in 1929, which is almost exactly what Hoover did beginning in 1929. However, the rate of bank failures grew each year until 1934, they did not fall. The number of unemployed grew each year until 1933, when 4 million went to work for one calendar year for the CWA... no drop in unemployment was recorded by the private sector. FDR's Three Rs (Relief, Recovery, and Reform) could have been only the ONE R... Relief for those most in need. Feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, care for the sick and elderly... but let the rest of indigent America wait for the laissez-faire policies of the administration to kick-start the economic engines that had so abruptly shut down. Doesn't that seem, even now, to be a "tough sell" to the voting public of the US of A?
More to my point is the fact that at least two "conservative" Presidents did exactly what you are saying is the worst thing to do in light of tough economic times... and that is deficit spend in a peace-time economy. Ike did it from '53 until '56 and Reagan did it from '82 until '86. The BIG difference here is that Reagan did it with a 28% top marginal tax bracket and increased the over-all revenue of the Fed by 17%, while Ike simply ran the budget into the red with the Interstate Highway effort while maintaining the 72% top marginal bracket.
Once again I come to the point I continually make... FDR did make mistakes (Yalta was a big one), and his BIGGEST by far was not listening to John Maynard Keyenes when it came to ending the cycles of boom-bust economics in the US. Ike didn't listen either... in fact, no one did until Reagan got into office, and then the paradigm changed and we saw the real effects of lower taxes equals more revenue equals more economic growth.
Hating the thought of greater government intervention is perfectly understandable on your part, I don't argue that at all. I'm only asking that a sense of rational objectivity be carried into the discussion about what intervention is warranted and what is not. If we are looking at a purely "constitutional" expansion of Presidential powers by a sitting President from the established limits as defined by the Constitution to what existed after that President left office, I don't think FDR even makes the top five. Washington was writing the handbook for the Presidency every morning he woke up. Jefferson was changing his mind about Executive authority on an almost daily basis, as he himself admitted. Madison threw out everything he held to be true and dear about the Oval Office prior to his election as soon as the shooting started in 1812. Jackson defied the Supreme Court of the United States of America, and on no fewer than two occasions... and he is still on the $20 bill. Lincoln was forced to become the "tyrant" the South so loudly accused him of being, setting precedent for executive power with each passing year of the Civil War.
FDR chose the path less traveled to answer the call of the people to end the depression and its effects... and I find it very hard to question the man for doing exactly what he was elected to do. If it didn't work or was illegal, it was ended and thrown out. If it did work and fulfilled its needed goals, it was ended and funds cut off by Congress. If it continued to work and fulfill its goals year after year, then it was perpetuated... until such time as the nation and its Congress could determine that it no longer works or fulfills a need, at which time it can be changed, continued or ended. THAT is the beauty of our system of government... and nothing that was put in place or remains in place from New Deal CAN NOT be changed or done away with whenever Congress feels it best to do so.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Honest questions... honest answers...
And I am not intentionally ignoring your asides... they are simply hard to keep up with.
So, my response to Honest Question #1: "My simple question, with 13 million Americans out of work today (&its closer to 19 million when using the government's own "U6" number), is why do you not advocate a similar approach now? There are millions of hungry mouths to feed now. Millions of out of work young men & needed infrastructure repairs now. There are holes in the banking, SSI, and energy industries now (presumably in need of government intervention/oversight). So where is your advocation of New Deal 2.0? "
Because the government protections that I feel are warranted to those facing hardship... be it unemployment or abject poverty due to circumstances outside their control... are already in place, thanks in large part to FDR's New Deal programs like Social Security, unemployment insurance, and any other Federal, State or local government assistance program that exist today, but did not exist prior to 1932. Today, we have between 13 and 19 million people sitting on very hard times, I know... but those people have resources that the 12 million in 1932 simply did not have, and no significant percentage of today's unemployed have faced anything near what people in 1932 have faced, poo-poo me all you want. No one saw thousands of homeless and foreclosed farmers walking... walking!... from Kansas and Oklahoma to the west coast in hopes of finding work picking watermelons in the San Joaquin valley in the last four years, did they? I didn't.
Another example: In 2010, the US Census Bureau said that 9% of people over the age of 65 were living in abject poverty (meaning they couldn't meet their own daily needs fiscally, nutritionally, or health-wise). In 1935, that number was 59%... and I shouldn't have to point out that a significantly higher number of people today are over the age of 65 then were a percentage of the population in 1935. So, smack dab in the middle of the Obama Recession we see only 9% poverty levels for 65+ age groups... and you are asking me if I think we need a new New Deal? Do you see the difference here? The difference is 59% versus 9%, and you are seriously comparing the two?
My point, from the beginning, has been that New Deal was a response to a crisis. So, my honest answer to your question is that "watered down" versions of crisis responses do not equal solutions when there is no comparable crisis to respond to. The problems in our national economic engines that allowed the Crash of '29 to happen at all have been fixed... and the crisis of the Great Depression has never repeated, so no repeat of the solutions taken need be applied.
Honest Question #2: "Is that such an unreasonable position for a mindful conservative to take?"
Your second question, to be quite frank, eluded me... so I simply used this one as my primer.
On SSI. You can't possibly think to rip me up about trying to say that Social Security today is different than Social Security Insurance in 1935, can you? Because that is exactly what you did only a few posts ago. The Social Security Act of 1935 clearly states that the moneys to be distributed to the individual States by the Social Security Administration Executive are to be taken from the funds collected the previous quarter, based on the enrolled needs of each State's participating population on a quarterly basis (Title I, Sec 3). There was no structured "savings account" that the Government was intending to keep money in that was withheld from a 21 year old's paycheck and then distributed to that same person 35 years later. That may have been FDR's vision, as you say... but it isn't in the Act that he signed into law on August 14th, 1935, so I can't really speak to that.
What I can say is that Social Security, as defined by the Act he signed into law, was a form of regulated and mandatory insurance collected and distributed by the Federal Government through the Social Security Administration, as a means of guarantying a minimum subsistence level of income for anyone qualifying for the benefit. The requirements for that qualification have changed and expanded since 1935... there is no question about that, but that can't be blamed on FDR, can it? How can he be held responsible for Eisenhower's expansion of the program in 1953 by ten million people? Or Kennedy's? Or Nixon's? Or Ronald W. Reagan's in 1982 (presumably in response to the recession he can't be blamed for, either)?
On my continually bringing up FDIC and SEC:
If I can't point to FDIC and SEC as successes because they are the "only ones"... and I can't come to agree with your view of the failure of SSI... what is left of New Deal to debate in 2012? What other programs are there to point at and say "This isn't working, it is a drain on the economy, it is a waste of moneys and effort!"? The WPA? It ended in June of '43... never to rise again after employing nearly 9 million people with no employment prospects outside of WPA in such wasteful and unprofitable ventures as the TVA, Golden Gate, Hoover Dam, National Flood Control projects on the Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee, Missouri, Colorado rivers, and 75% of all municipal air raid systems after Dec 7, 1941. The CCC? Ended in 1942 when it was determined that the needs of the country no longer required the program. Tennessee Valley Association? Still around, making the Fed between $189 and $240 million each year in effortless revenue. Hoover Dam? Still there, powering your computer as we type. What about Los Alamos laboratories? Another New Deal waste, right? The Empire State Building? That hasn't paid for itself a hundred times over.
Sorry... getting tired and this is such a hard point to have to argue over and over again.
Could some things have been done BETTER during the Great Depression than what was done in New Deal? Certainly, I won't argue that. Did EVERYTHING that FDR tried work? Certainly not. I can admit this, candidly and honestly... but I am doing it from the vantage point of fifty-some years after the fact. When this was happening at the moment, none of this had ever been tried, and the status quo had failed for the better part of four years. Not simply failed to bring a recovery, but the symptoms of the disease that was the depression got worse and worse with each passing year from '29 to '33... why? If New Deal failed as utterly as you say, then why did the recovery... ANY recovery at all... start ONLY after FDR was in office and not before?
That's my honest question.
So, my response to Honest Question #1: "My simple question, with 13 million Americans out of work today (&its closer to 19 million when using the government's own "U6" number), is why do you not advocate a similar approach now? There are millions of hungry mouths to feed now. Millions of out of work young men & needed infrastructure repairs now. There are holes in the banking, SSI, and energy industries now (presumably in need of government intervention/oversight). So where is your advocation of New Deal 2.0? "
Because the government protections that I feel are warranted to those facing hardship... be it unemployment or abject poverty due to circumstances outside their control... are already in place, thanks in large part to FDR's New Deal programs like Social Security, unemployment insurance, and any other Federal, State or local government assistance program that exist today, but did not exist prior to 1932. Today, we have between 13 and 19 million people sitting on very hard times, I know... but those people have resources that the 12 million in 1932 simply did not have, and no significant percentage of today's unemployed have faced anything near what people in 1932 have faced, poo-poo me all you want. No one saw thousands of homeless and foreclosed farmers walking... walking!... from Kansas and Oklahoma to the west coast in hopes of finding work picking watermelons in the San Joaquin valley in the last four years, did they? I didn't.
Another example: In 2010, the US Census Bureau said that 9% of people over the age of 65 were living in abject poverty (meaning they couldn't meet their own daily needs fiscally, nutritionally, or health-wise). In 1935, that number was 59%... and I shouldn't have to point out that a significantly higher number of people today are over the age of 65 then were a percentage of the population in 1935. So, smack dab in the middle of the Obama Recession we see only 9% poverty levels for 65+ age groups... and you are asking me if I think we need a new New Deal? Do you see the difference here? The difference is 59% versus 9%, and you are seriously comparing the two?
My point, from the beginning, has been that New Deal was a response to a crisis. So, my honest answer to your question is that "watered down" versions of crisis responses do not equal solutions when there is no comparable crisis to respond to. The problems in our national economic engines that allowed the Crash of '29 to happen at all have been fixed... and the crisis of the Great Depression has never repeated, so no repeat of the solutions taken need be applied.
Honest Question #2: "Is that such an unreasonable position for a mindful conservative to take?"
Your second question, to be quite frank, eluded me... so I simply used this one as my primer.
On SSI. You can't possibly think to rip me up about trying to say that Social Security today is different than Social Security Insurance in 1935, can you? Because that is exactly what you did only a few posts ago. The Social Security Act of 1935 clearly states that the moneys to be distributed to the individual States by the Social Security Administration Executive are to be taken from the funds collected the previous quarter, based on the enrolled needs of each State's participating population on a quarterly basis (Title I, Sec 3). There was no structured "savings account" that the Government was intending to keep money in that was withheld from a 21 year old's paycheck and then distributed to that same person 35 years later. That may have been FDR's vision, as you say... but it isn't in the Act that he signed into law on August 14th, 1935, so I can't really speak to that.
What I can say is that Social Security, as defined by the Act he signed into law, was a form of regulated and mandatory insurance collected and distributed by the Federal Government through the Social Security Administration, as a means of guarantying a minimum subsistence level of income for anyone qualifying for the benefit. The requirements for that qualification have changed and expanded since 1935... there is no question about that, but that can't be blamed on FDR, can it? How can he be held responsible for Eisenhower's expansion of the program in 1953 by ten million people? Or Kennedy's? Or Nixon's? Or Ronald W. Reagan's in 1982 (presumably in response to the recession he can't be blamed for, either)?
On my continually bringing up FDIC and SEC:
If I can't point to FDIC and SEC as successes because they are the "only ones"... and I can't come to agree with your view of the failure of SSI... what is left of New Deal to debate in 2012? What other programs are there to point at and say "This isn't working, it is a drain on the economy, it is a waste of moneys and effort!"? The WPA? It ended in June of '43... never to rise again after employing nearly 9 million people with no employment prospects outside of WPA in such wasteful and unprofitable ventures as the TVA, Golden Gate, Hoover Dam, National Flood Control projects on the Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee, Missouri, Colorado rivers, and 75% of all municipal air raid systems after Dec 7, 1941. The CCC? Ended in 1942 when it was determined that the needs of the country no longer required the program. Tennessee Valley Association? Still around, making the Fed between $189 and $240 million each year in effortless revenue. Hoover Dam? Still there, powering your computer as we type. What about Los Alamos laboratories? Another New Deal waste, right? The Empire State Building? That hasn't paid for itself a hundred times over.
Sorry... getting tired and this is such a hard point to have to argue over and over again.
Could some things have been done BETTER during the Great Depression than what was done in New Deal? Certainly, I won't argue that. Did EVERYTHING that FDR tried work? Certainly not. I can admit this, candidly and honestly... but I am doing it from the vantage point of fifty-some years after the fact. When this was happening at the moment, none of this had ever been tried, and the status quo had failed for the better part of four years. Not simply failed to bring a recovery, but the symptoms of the disease that was the depression got worse and worse with each passing year from '29 to '33... why? If New Deal failed as utterly as you say, then why did the recovery... ANY recovery at all... start ONLY after FDR was in office and not before?
That's my honest question.
You are missing my basic question...
While ignoring all my "asides."
You do not have to endorse reinstating the exact programs from the 30's. My simple question, with 13 million Americans out of work today (&its closer to 19 million when using the government's own "U6" number), is why do you not advocate a similar approach now? There are millions of hungry mouths to feed now. Millions of out of work young men & needed infrastructure repairs now. There are holes in the banking, SSI, and energy industries now (presumably in need of government intervention/oversight). So where is your advocation of New Deal 2.0? A revamped version to fit the current crisis? Why not expand government oversight, programs, & works in a way akin to dealing with the Great Recession? That's not "lame." Thats an honest question.
I want to get to another honest question, but first a point of order ... you continue to list SSI, now commonly referred to as SS only (an important distinction as it now serves millions as a primary retirement fund, & not supplementary). I can not think of a clearer example of a misguided government program than social security. It carries with it two fundamental flaws (& both I believe, FDR was aware of). First it presumes that the central government can be trusted to collect billions in tax revenue and in essence sit on it over decades upon decades - without spending it - & then give it back to the tax payer at the age of 65. That was FDR's intent (I know LBJ officially moved it into the general fund). To believe a government capable of such a feat is the height of naivety, even in the 1930s. And FDR doesnt strike me as the naive sort. Secondly, it presumes (assuming IOU's would at some point need be issued) there would never be a baby boom. The very premise of a government mandated and collected retirement program (as primary or supplementary) is flawed ... its simply unsustainable. SSI is a failure. A multi generational failure that is never more than one generation from crumbling as it drags on our national deficit. That is as obvious as the sun coming up. And before you quote to me the millions that would have/would starve without SS income, let me note that citing such a thing presumes these millions of people wouldnt have made other arrangements for their retirement during their working life (think of all those billions in private sector investment plans, its mind boggling to think what that could of accomplished for the retirees & the economy as a whole).
Now - you keep picking the few programs that worked, like SEC & FDIC. I know why. Its quicker to name what worked. The argument for me was never whether direct relief (CCC or FEMA) has a direct benefit for those in need. The argument was whether such things aide in pulling a nation out of a Depression. If you want to argue the merits of SEC & FDIC, thats fine. But those are not the sum total of New Deal. You seem to be saying - now this is important, dont just speed read through this - that the aide & works programs, price controls, intrusions via perversion of the commerce clause, oppressively high taxes & mammoth peace time deficit spending, all helped to see those hurting through the 30's until the war (thats my interpretation of "they all ended by 1943"). I'm not arguing whether they "helped" hungry people eat. It's fine to argue that New Deal helped see people through the Depression both directly & in terms of offering hope that at least someone was doing something to try & change things (which is what I assign as the source of both FDR & Obama's popularity at the ballot box). What I'm saying is that while New Deal helped see people through, through massive spending, it was a net loss for those same people (& the nation) because it prolonged the Depression era.
As conservatives, you & I, knowing the effect massive peace time deficit spending, the expansion of government regulations/oversight/departments, & oppresively high taxes have on an economy, is it so unreasonable for me (or presumably you, as a conservative) to look at New Deal and say "that couldnt of possibly worked." ? And then point to the Roosevelt Recession as evidence of that?
Let me put it another way - that recession demonstrates something very clearly to me. Turning on the spigot was like administrating morphine to a gun shot victim until the doctor arrives. It doesnt, however, get the doctor there any faster. And in fact, if you administer too much morphine you can make the doctor's job that much harder. I submit that while it felt good to the millions that received it, FDR's overall approach (in its' totality) was to administer too much morphine. Not out of malice, but because he was (forgive me) standing over a bleeding friend writhing in pain & wanted to do "something." And the only "doctor" capable of saving a patient who was gut shot & now overdosing on morphine, was WWII.
Is that such an unreasonable position for a mindful conservative to take?
You do not have to endorse reinstating the exact programs from the 30's. My simple question, with 13 million Americans out of work today (&its closer to 19 million when using the government's own "U6" number), is why do you not advocate a similar approach now? There are millions of hungry mouths to feed now. Millions of out of work young men & needed infrastructure repairs now. There are holes in the banking, SSI, and energy industries now (presumably in need of government intervention/oversight). So where is your advocation of New Deal 2.0? A revamped version to fit the current crisis? Why not expand government oversight, programs, & works in a way akin to dealing with the Great Recession? That's not "lame." Thats an honest question.
I want to get to another honest question, but first a point of order ... you continue to list SSI, now commonly referred to as SS only (an important distinction as it now serves millions as a primary retirement fund, & not supplementary). I can not think of a clearer example of a misguided government program than social security. It carries with it two fundamental flaws (& both I believe, FDR was aware of). First it presumes that the central government can be trusted to collect billions in tax revenue and in essence sit on it over decades upon decades - without spending it - & then give it back to the tax payer at the age of 65. That was FDR's intent (I know LBJ officially moved it into the general fund). To believe a government capable of such a feat is the height of naivety, even in the 1930s. And FDR doesnt strike me as the naive sort. Secondly, it presumes (assuming IOU's would at some point need be issued) there would never be a baby boom. The very premise of a government mandated and collected retirement program (as primary or supplementary) is flawed ... its simply unsustainable. SSI is a failure. A multi generational failure that is never more than one generation from crumbling as it drags on our national deficit. That is as obvious as the sun coming up. And before you quote to me the millions that would have/would starve without SS income, let me note that citing such a thing presumes these millions of people wouldnt have made other arrangements for their retirement during their working life (think of all those billions in private sector investment plans, its mind boggling to think what that could of accomplished for the retirees & the economy as a whole).
Now - you keep picking the few programs that worked, like SEC & FDIC. I know why. Its quicker to name what worked. The argument for me was never whether direct relief (CCC or FEMA) has a direct benefit for those in need. The argument was whether such things aide in pulling a nation out of a Depression. If you want to argue the merits of SEC & FDIC, thats fine. But those are not the sum total of New Deal. You seem to be saying - now this is important, dont just speed read through this - that the aide & works programs, price controls, intrusions via perversion of the commerce clause, oppressively high taxes & mammoth peace time deficit spending, all helped to see those hurting through the 30's until the war (thats my interpretation of "they all ended by 1943"). I'm not arguing whether they "helped" hungry people eat. It's fine to argue that New Deal helped see people through the Depression both directly & in terms of offering hope that at least someone was doing something to try & change things (which is what I assign as the source of both FDR & Obama's popularity at the ballot box). What I'm saying is that while New Deal helped see people through, through massive spending, it was a net loss for those same people (& the nation) because it prolonged the Depression era.
As conservatives, you & I, knowing the effect massive peace time deficit spending, the expansion of government regulations/oversight/departments, & oppresively high taxes have on an economy, is it so unreasonable for me (or presumably you, as a conservative) to look at New Deal and say "that couldnt of possibly worked." ? And then point to the Roosevelt Recession as evidence of that?
Let me put it another way - that recession demonstrates something very clearly to me. Turning on the spigot was like administrating morphine to a gun shot victim until the doctor arrives. It doesnt, however, get the doctor there any faster. And in fact, if you administer too much morphine you can make the doctor's job that much harder. I submit that while it felt good to the millions that received it, FDR's overall approach (in its' totality) was to administer too much morphine. Not out of malice, but because he was (forgive me) standing over a bleeding friend writhing in pain & wanted to do "something." And the only "doctor" capable of saving a patient who was gut shot & now overdosing on morphine, was WWII.
Is that such an unreasonable position for a mindful conservative to take?
Gosh... you make this tough.
How can your claim that "if it worked then it must work now" keep you tied up in these knots? Its a facile but false premise to base your argument on... and you don't seem to want to hear me when I explain that to you.
I don't want argue this anymore... not because I think I am wrong, or you are winning this "fight"... but because you don't want to "discuss" anything.
Now, seemingly, you want me to call myself the "progressive" that I must be and embrace all that the term implies... like I should run out and get my HOPE pins, put the blue bumper stickers on my truck, then trade it in on a Chevy Volt so I can justify Obama's bail out.
Again... I don't support New Deal for the here and now because what I feel New Deal FIXED is still fixed. What New Deal failed to fix was most Democratic politician's understanding on how to spend government money. Everything else about New Deal... and I'm waiting for you to prove this point wrong... ended by 1943 or much, much earlier.
What is truly sad is that you are assuming that I'd NOT support things like the implementation of FDIC, the SEC, the strengthening of the Federal Reserve, the signing of the AAA, or the implementation of SSI had they been done by Hoover rather than Roosevelt... because Hoover was a "conservative". That's lame, man. The programs and policies listed above WORKED to prevent another depression (and are still working) and helped carry the US dollar into the rest of the century as the global benchmark currency. I don't care who signed them into law... the fact that they were signed into law and worked is enough for me. Just the same way that whenever a "conservative" President signs into law something that I am convinced doesn't work (Nixon's EPA jumps immediately to mind, as does Ike's making a cabinet level office for the New Deal-esque Department of Health, Education and Welfare and extending welfare benefits to more than 10 million non-union workers) makes me very, very sad and unhappy so that I DO NOT want to vote for them again. My main point all along has been that Hoover should have recognized this and done something similar himself... then I'd be lauding Hoover rather than Roosevelt.
I don't want to see another WPA just because I have mementos from my grandfather's days with the program, and I don't want another CCC because I recall hearing stories about it when I was a young child. They aren't needed now... but I maintain they were needed then. WPA put more than 8 million men to work over the course of 9 years, and accomplished great things for the country (infrastructure) while putting food in families mouths and roofs over heads... but things like UEI and state-level placement programs now do what wasn't being done in 1932. The CCC put 300,000 young men to work in the woods and fields of America to help create the needed conservation programs that have kept a repeat of the Dust Bowl from ever happening again... but it isn't needed now, because the tree rows and dikes they built in 1935 still do what they were intended to do.
If your beef with New Deal is about "wasted relief" (my term, not yours) then perhaps we should discuss ending once and for all Federal programs like FEMA... which do nothing else but put back into place infrastructure resources that disasters destroy, while plugging relief money into the hands of victims like us during Katrina. If New Deal was a wasted effort and a handicap to the nation as a whole, then how can FEMA be any different? I see New Deal as a response to a single, catastrophic crisis that, for the most part, ended by the end of the crisis. Isn't that what FEMA is, too?
Finally, if I have to give credit for failures within New Deal programs as well as credit for successes, then please explain why I shouldn't move Dwight D. down my list, since he expanded the scope, cost and benefits available through Social Security to those citizens who WEREN'T contributing to the general fund through payroll contributions? That means "Federal welfare" in my book, and it didn't exist before Ike signed it into law in 1953. A conservative, Republican President who promised to end "New Deal" programs during his campaign for office, signing into law a multi-billion dollar expansion of SSI benefits that you seem to only want to attribute to FDR. How is that a fair and balanced view of the topic we are discussing?
Like I said... you can have FDR anywhere on your list that you want, I know you hate the very mention of his name. I'm not ever going to try and convince you that you are wrong again. I will, for as long as you ask me to, defend my position, though, since I am quite sure I am right. So, continuing the talk is entirely up to you.
I don't want argue this anymore... not because I think I am wrong, or you are winning this "fight"... but because you don't want to "discuss" anything.
Now, seemingly, you want me to call myself the "progressive" that I must be and embrace all that the term implies... like I should run out and get my HOPE pins, put the blue bumper stickers on my truck, then trade it in on a Chevy Volt so I can justify Obama's bail out.
Again... I don't support New Deal for the here and now because what I feel New Deal FIXED is still fixed. What New Deal failed to fix was most Democratic politician's understanding on how to spend government money. Everything else about New Deal... and I'm waiting for you to prove this point wrong... ended by 1943 or much, much earlier.
What is truly sad is that you are assuming that I'd NOT support things like the implementation of FDIC, the SEC, the strengthening of the Federal Reserve, the signing of the AAA, or the implementation of SSI had they been done by Hoover rather than Roosevelt... because Hoover was a "conservative". That's lame, man. The programs and policies listed above WORKED to prevent another depression (and are still working) and helped carry the US dollar into the rest of the century as the global benchmark currency. I don't care who signed them into law... the fact that they were signed into law and worked is enough for me. Just the same way that whenever a "conservative" President signs into law something that I am convinced doesn't work (Nixon's EPA jumps immediately to mind, as does Ike's making a cabinet level office for the New Deal-esque Department of Health, Education and Welfare and extending welfare benefits to more than 10 million non-union workers) makes me very, very sad and unhappy so that I DO NOT want to vote for them again. My main point all along has been that Hoover should have recognized this and done something similar himself... then I'd be lauding Hoover rather than Roosevelt.
I don't want to see another WPA just because I have mementos from my grandfather's days with the program, and I don't want another CCC because I recall hearing stories about it when I was a young child. They aren't needed now... but I maintain they were needed then. WPA put more than 8 million men to work over the course of 9 years, and accomplished great things for the country (infrastructure) while putting food in families mouths and roofs over heads... but things like UEI and state-level placement programs now do what wasn't being done in 1932. The CCC put 300,000 young men to work in the woods and fields of America to help create the needed conservation programs that have kept a repeat of the Dust Bowl from ever happening again... but it isn't needed now, because the tree rows and dikes they built in 1935 still do what they were intended to do.
If your beef with New Deal is about "wasted relief" (my term, not yours) then perhaps we should discuss ending once and for all Federal programs like FEMA... which do nothing else but put back into place infrastructure resources that disasters destroy, while plugging relief money into the hands of victims like us during Katrina. If New Deal was a wasted effort and a handicap to the nation as a whole, then how can FEMA be any different? I see New Deal as a response to a single, catastrophic crisis that, for the most part, ended by the end of the crisis. Isn't that what FEMA is, too?
Finally, if I have to give credit for failures within New Deal programs as well as credit for successes, then please explain why I shouldn't move Dwight D. down my list, since he expanded the scope, cost and benefits available through Social Security to those citizens who WEREN'T contributing to the general fund through payroll contributions? That means "Federal welfare" in my book, and it didn't exist before Ike signed it into law in 1953. A conservative, Republican President who promised to end "New Deal" programs during his campaign for office, signing into law a multi-billion dollar expansion of SSI benefits that you seem to only want to attribute to FDR. How is that a fair and balanced view of the topic we are discussing?
Like I said... you can have FDR anywhere on your list that you want, I know you hate the very mention of his name. I'm not ever going to try and convince you that you are wrong again. I will, for as long as you ask me to, defend my position, though, since I am quite sure I am right. So, continuing the talk is entirely up to you.
That's fine....
FDR gets a pass for being a progressive radical of the first order (the standard bearer of US leftist ideology), because the country was in such bad shape, and after all he recited the pledge so he must, must love the Constitution he continually attempted to get around. But Obama, he goes a just a couple blocks down FDR's mile long road & he's an American hating Constitution defiler who must be stopped, even though he was overwhelmingly elected as well.
Ok, thats fine.
You know this would ALL make sense if you were a consistent progressive, into 2012. What continues to baffle me is that in 2012 you oppose any candidate that would get even CLOSE to an FDR agenda. But wait, I forgot, if we enter another catastrophic depression on par with the 1930's, THEN you'll back such a candidate. THEN this stuff would work. THEN there's a reason to abandon your 2012 principles ... to save them, I guess.
Titus, either this kind of crap works (New Deal, top down, planned economies) or it doesn't. You saythey don't. UNLESS it gets really, really bad, THEN it would work (because it DID work, then). You dont "need" Obama to do that, now, though, because now it wont ... sorta ... pretty much, work ... now. What the hell does that mean, you dont "need" him to do it now? Does it work or not? We are certainly capable as a nation of duplicating the general theme, direction & mass bureaucratic dissemination inherit in those policies (& Lord knows this President is trying). Yet you currently oppose such an ideology & the policy course it would yield.
As an aside, I'll answer your carpet bombing analogy/question. Would it work to have turned Iraq into fused glass - yes. Would I advocate it? No. But I DO know it would work if they tried it. In other words, denying the military my approval doesnt mean it wouldn't work to bring an early and swift end to the insurgency, it would. The risk/reward just doesn't make it for me, strategically - that's not the same as saying it wouldnt work were the decision made. Even if I thought nukes were the wrong approach(& obviously I do), I still know they'd work (they would end the war). So I'll change the dynamic of the question to address what I see as a facile comparison (war is on a slightly different risk/reward measurement system than economics, if you ask me): even if you would not advocate it, even if you disapproved of its' implementation,even if you thought it the wrong approach to reach the goal, in the end would a new New Deal work if they tried it?
By the way a simple question: you admit that FDR's tax policy (& I'll throw in the embargos inherited from Hoover) had a retarding effect on the recovery. Now you know, like you know your name, how economically stifling oppressively high taxes are. Do you think the rest of New Deal, as it existed then, was enough to not only compensate but overcome that retarding effect for a net New Deal benefit? Because those oppressive tax rates were as much a part of the New Deal agenda as SSI. I, for one, knowing what I do about basic economics, can not see how the answer to that question is "yes." And if you answer yes you're telling me thats how good the rest of New Deal was, even with oppressively high tax rates it STILL works. Really? It was that good huh? But it wont work now ... right? Come on man.
Another simple question: as president you propose an overall multi year economic recovery agenda, and 80% of it gets thrown out as unconstitutional. Do you have a "successful" agenda? Bear in mind, that remaining 20% includes those oppressive taxes.
My bottom line on your defense - I submit if New Deal "doesnt work" or wouldnt work in times like these, then they hadn't a prayer of working during a time when things were much, much worse. How can you not see the logic in that simple statement?
I will believe to my dying breath that any conservative in 2012 (read: YOU), who defends New Deal is doing so based on an emotional, nostalgic, "I own a tool bearing a WPA stamp" connection ... nothing else makes sense.
Ok, thats fine.
You know this would ALL make sense if you were a consistent progressive, into 2012. What continues to baffle me is that in 2012 you oppose any candidate that would get even CLOSE to an FDR agenda. But wait, I forgot, if we enter another catastrophic depression on par with the 1930's, THEN you'll back such a candidate. THEN this stuff would work. THEN there's a reason to abandon your 2012 principles ... to save them, I guess.
Titus, either this kind of crap works (New Deal, top down, planned economies) or it doesn't. You saythey don't. UNLESS it gets really, really bad, THEN it would work (because it DID work, then). You dont "need" Obama to do that, now, though, because now it wont ... sorta ... pretty much, work ... now. What the hell does that mean, you dont "need" him to do it now? Does it work or not? We are certainly capable as a nation of duplicating the general theme, direction & mass bureaucratic dissemination inherit in those policies (& Lord knows this President is trying). Yet you currently oppose such an ideology & the policy course it would yield.
As an aside, I'll answer your carpet bombing analogy/question. Would it work to have turned Iraq into fused glass - yes. Would I advocate it? No. But I DO know it would work if they tried it. In other words, denying the military my approval doesnt mean it wouldn't work to bring an early and swift end to the insurgency, it would. The risk/reward just doesn't make it for me, strategically - that's not the same as saying it wouldnt work were the decision made. Even if I thought nukes were the wrong approach(& obviously I do), I still know they'd work (they would end the war). So I'll change the dynamic of the question to address what I see as a facile comparison (war is on a slightly different risk/reward measurement system than economics, if you ask me): even if you would not advocate it, even if you disapproved of its' implementation,even if you thought it the wrong approach to reach the goal, in the end would a new New Deal work if they tried it?
By the way a simple question: you admit that FDR's tax policy (& I'll throw in the embargos inherited from Hoover) had a retarding effect on the recovery. Now you know, like you know your name, how economically stifling oppressively high taxes are. Do you think the rest of New Deal, as it existed then, was enough to not only compensate but overcome that retarding effect for a net New Deal benefit? Because those oppressive tax rates were as much a part of the New Deal agenda as SSI. I, for one, knowing what I do about basic economics, can not see how the answer to that question is "yes." And if you answer yes you're telling me thats how good the rest of New Deal was, even with oppressively high tax rates it STILL works. Really? It was that good huh? But it wont work now ... right? Come on man.
Another simple question: as president you propose an overall multi year economic recovery agenda, and 80% of it gets thrown out as unconstitutional. Do you have a "successful" agenda? Bear in mind, that remaining 20% includes those oppressive taxes.
My bottom line on your defense - I submit if New Deal "doesnt work" or wouldnt work in times like these, then they hadn't a prayer of working during a time when things were much, much worse. How can you not see the logic in that simple statement?
I will believe to my dying breath that any conservative in 2012 (read: YOU), who defends New Deal is doing so based on an emotional, nostalgic, "I own a tool bearing a WPA stamp" connection ... nothing else makes sense.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Moving on...
Having spent the better part of an hour typing my last post, let me try to start where I thought we should start.
Lincoln holds top honors because he preserved the Union in the face of national crisis. Filmore, Pierce and Buchanan get slapped down for doing exactly the same thing, right? All three preserved the Union by maintaining the status quo, even though that was proven to be not only ineffectual but detrimental to the national good. Only Lincoln succeeds where the previous three fail to not only "unite" the country but end the scourge of slavery forever. Since that time, we have been "THE United States of America" rather than "THESE United States of America".
Isn't there a parallel here with Hoover and FDR? I give no such credit to Wilson, understand... he only won because Roosevelt split the GOP ticket with his Bull Moose run... so I am not questioning your dislike for him. His elitist attitudes leave a bad taste in my mouth, too. My point is simply that the status quo wasn't working in 1860... and it wasn't working in 1932. I'm not comparing the crisis points, mind you... only the more generally "radical" aspects of the Presidential responses. Who was the more radical in their response to a national crisis: Lincoln or FDR?
When the status quo fails, is it "radical" to change it (beyond the literal definition of the term, I mean)? Was Reagan a "radical" for lowering the top marginal tax rate 72% in 1981? Carter was facing the prospect of RAISING it, had he won the election... just to maintain the false promise of a balanced budget attempt.
In light of this reasoning, it might be better to say that I "dislike" Obama because he is trying (like hell) to maintain the liberal status quo that even I (a pinko-commie fag, according to some here) know to be not only ineffectual but detrimental to the national good... not because he is a "radical".
Lincoln holds top honors because he preserved the Union in the face of national crisis. Filmore, Pierce and Buchanan get slapped down for doing exactly the same thing, right? All three preserved the Union by maintaining the status quo, even though that was proven to be not only ineffectual but detrimental to the national good. Only Lincoln succeeds where the previous three fail to not only "unite" the country but end the scourge of slavery forever. Since that time, we have been "THE United States of America" rather than "THESE United States of America".
Isn't there a parallel here with Hoover and FDR? I give no such credit to Wilson, understand... he only won because Roosevelt split the GOP ticket with his Bull Moose run... so I am not questioning your dislike for him. His elitist attitudes leave a bad taste in my mouth, too. My point is simply that the status quo wasn't working in 1860... and it wasn't working in 1932. I'm not comparing the crisis points, mind you... only the more generally "radical" aspects of the Presidential responses. Who was the more radical in their response to a national crisis: Lincoln or FDR?
When the status quo fails, is it "radical" to change it (beyond the literal definition of the term, I mean)? Was Reagan a "radical" for lowering the top marginal tax rate 72% in 1981? Carter was facing the prospect of RAISING it, had he won the election... just to maintain the false promise of a balanced budget attempt.
In light of this reasoning, it might be better to say that I "dislike" Obama because he is trying (like hell) to maintain the liberal status quo that even I (a pinko-commie fag, according to some here) know to be not only ineffectual but detrimental to the national good... not because he is a "radical".
You were right...
... it did take only three posts before this fight erupted again.
I'll do my best to respond to your post, but it isn't what I wanted to post about.
I certainly can't argue that FDR is more "radical" than Obama... FDR was doing what had never been done before, and he was doing it because nothing the Hoover Administration did was working for the nearly four years prior to his inauguration. A quarter of the population was out of work, and had been for more than three years. The rate of bank failures was more than 29% nationally, but in some states that rate was as high as 50%. Farm foreclosures were as high as 75% in areas where, without farms, there was nothing else to do for income. The boom-bust cycle of the American economy typically ran on a 7 to 14 year cycle (1790 to 1932), with the longest depression lasting more than 20 years... that's 20 years of negative economic growth every year. How could Obama possibly hope to compete with that? This was the worst financial crisis the country had ever seen, and was so big it crippled the entire world's economy for nearly 10 years.
Frankly, if I can't compare the two men and their policies, then neither can you... the parallel doesn't exist. Nothing about the nation's current economic woes can even come close to what people were suffering in 1932... nothing. Do you see my point of response to your question? I don't want Obama to try and "out radical" FDR by re-writing the Federal regulations on banking insurance, because FDIC still works. I don't need Obama to come up with a new program (or host of programs) to put unemployed millions back to work, because we have UEI and State-regulated equivalents that still work. We don't need massive million-man public works projects today because the 12 million unemployed (all with existing assistance and support) are only 8% of the American workforce and less than 1% of the total population, while the 13 million unemployed of 1932 constituted nearly 12% of the overall population, and more than 25% of the workforce. The average time an American spends unemployed now is less than 9 months... in 1932 it was measured in years. Today, we don't have thousands of starving farmers walking from Oklahoma to California looking for work, or crowds of 10,000 people lining up for soup hand-outs in Chicago's city streets. Sorry... the comparison doesn't work like that.
The paradigm of "New Deal" was unique, I think... but there is no denying that other Presidents have tried to copy what FDR did. Johnson did, and in 1968 (even though he didn't run) Johnson would have lost the election. Carter did, and in 1980 he did lose the election. Yes, the effort to follow FDR's footsteps has been made, and it has failed each and every time... because the parallel didn't exist.
That, my friend, is the essence of my "proof" to this point. We've never gone back to that sort of economic crisis since... so something worked. The SEC, FDIC, SSI, AAA, all the "permanent" and lasting programs or agencies of the New Deal that still exist continue to do what they were intended to do: prevent another "great depression". All the short-term, alphabet-soup programs that were intended to give limited or partial relief to those most in need either worked, were determined to be un-Constitutional, or were shut down by the end of WWII (or far sooner) since the symptoms that they were intended to fix no longer existed. That is why I still contend that New Deal as a Presidential "policy agenda" ended by 1943, while the New Deal era continued until 1980, because so many saw an opportunity to gain political advantage by using what had worked in the past again in the present.
By arguing that if New Deal worked in 1932, then it must surely work now and that I am inconsistent by denying this, you could as well be saying that since Gen. Curtis LeMay had such success with the strategic bombing plans he employed over Japan in 1945, we should have opted to utilize the same strategy in 2003 and fuse the Iraqi landscape into blackened glass over the course of months of perpetual bombing runs before ever setting a boot down on the ground. We defeated Japan without ever setting foot on the main islands in 1945... why couldn't we have done that each and every time we fought since? Because it wasn't the model we needed to follow, that's why.
Now, if you want to talk about FDR and his failings, we can do that too. He was incapable of understanding that Keyenes and his economic theory said that spending should go up while taxes went down. He continually sought to keep taxes high (especially on the richest portion of Americans) in a forlorn hope of having a balanced budget... and that mentality remained entrenched until Reagan came to office in 1981. In fact, it remains entrenched to this day... and that IS a legacy of both FDR and the "liberal, progressive" agenda that Wilson, Truman and every Democrat since has maintained and strengthened. This false assumption (or misunderstanding, if you will) has an easy and very specific counter in Ronald Reagan and the success of his 1981 tax cuts... and THAT is the counter to what FDR and every other Democrat since has failed to grasp.
He was incapable of compromise (I think), at least politically... and while this trait may have served him well as a war-time President, it didn't make for a smooth-running domestic agenda and forced many representative office holders into untenable positions by default. He intentionally placed people into cabinet positions that either couldn't do the job or couldn't work effectively with other cabinet members, just so he could remain the focus of public attention. This worked well when things were going well, but he paid the price when things went wrong (NRA, the Court-stacking scandal, etc). Presidents that followed that example paid the price, as well... Richard Nixon jumps to mind.
I will openly admit that a 80% and higher tax bracket and astronomical corporate tax rates (more than 14 of them) kept the recovery from the depression at a far slower pace then it needed to be. I cannot deny that there WAS a recession in 1938 (called the Roosevelt Recession) that resulted from a demand for a balanced budget by a new Republican majority in the Congress. I disagree with you on why that recession happened (thus, the perpetual argument that the "great depression" lasted through WWII and didn't, in fact end in 1934), but it did happen... along with five other recessions since then, the most recent in 2008. I maintain that no depression has occurred since 1934, though... thus ending a 140-year cycle of boom-bust economics that plagued America since its inception, even though you and I still seem to disagree on WHY that cycle ended when it did.
On my list of Presidential rankings, there is an association with Presidents that embraced compromise and watered-down actions and their position at the bottom of the list. It isn't the ONLY criteria, but it is a big factor. My worst Presidents have all been "compromisers" of the first order... and no one can say FDR was that. He was, at the time of his death, one of the most popular Presidents of all time, and he won resounding election victories time and time again (four times, to be exact). I am STILL of the opinion that (removing WWII from the equation, as you asked) he was elected to fix a national crisis by a population that demanded action... any action... and he delivered by doing what had never been done before and even some things that were deemed later to be un-Constitutional in order to answer that demand. Since his time in office, the nation has seen an era of economic growth and success that surpasses anything that came before... and while I am NOT giving him credit for all of that, I can't say that any of his policies or actions as President prevented or even hampered that success in later decades.
I understand that you are of the opinion that all success since 1932 happened in spite of FDR... and that is the part of this discussion that we seem unable to get past.
I'll do my best to respond to your post, but it isn't what I wanted to post about.
I certainly can't argue that FDR is more "radical" than Obama... FDR was doing what had never been done before, and he was doing it because nothing the Hoover Administration did was working for the nearly four years prior to his inauguration. A quarter of the population was out of work, and had been for more than three years. The rate of bank failures was more than 29% nationally, but in some states that rate was as high as 50%. Farm foreclosures were as high as 75% in areas where, without farms, there was nothing else to do for income. The boom-bust cycle of the American economy typically ran on a 7 to 14 year cycle (1790 to 1932), with the longest depression lasting more than 20 years... that's 20 years of negative economic growth every year. How could Obama possibly hope to compete with that? This was the worst financial crisis the country had ever seen, and was so big it crippled the entire world's economy for nearly 10 years.
Frankly, if I can't compare the two men and their policies, then neither can you... the parallel doesn't exist. Nothing about the nation's current economic woes can even come close to what people were suffering in 1932... nothing. Do you see my point of response to your question? I don't want Obama to try and "out radical" FDR by re-writing the Federal regulations on banking insurance, because FDIC still works. I don't need Obama to come up with a new program (or host of programs) to put unemployed millions back to work, because we have UEI and State-regulated equivalents that still work. We don't need massive million-man public works projects today because the 12 million unemployed (all with existing assistance and support) are only 8% of the American workforce and less than 1% of the total population, while the 13 million unemployed of 1932 constituted nearly 12% of the overall population, and more than 25% of the workforce. The average time an American spends unemployed now is less than 9 months... in 1932 it was measured in years. Today, we don't have thousands of starving farmers walking from Oklahoma to California looking for work, or crowds of 10,000 people lining up for soup hand-outs in Chicago's city streets. Sorry... the comparison doesn't work like that.
The paradigm of "New Deal" was unique, I think... but there is no denying that other Presidents have tried to copy what FDR did. Johnson did, and in 1968 (even though he didn't run) Johnson would have lost the election. Carter did, and in 1980 he did lose the election. Yes, the effort to follow FDR's footsteps has been made, and it has failed each and every time... because the parallel didn't exist.
That, my friend, is the essence of my "proof" to this point. We've never gone back to that sort of economic crisis since... so something worked. The SEC, FDIC, SSI, AAA, all the "permanent" and lasting programs or agencies of the New Deal that still exist continue to do what they were intended to do: prevent another "great depression". All the short-term, alphabet-soup programs that were intended to give limited or partial relief to those most in need either worked, were determined to be un-Constitutional, or were shut down by the end of WWII (or far sooner) since the symptoms that they were intended to fix no longer existed. That is why I still contend that New Deal as a Presidential "policy agenda" ended by 1943, while the New Deal era continued until 1980, because so many saw an opportunity to gain political advantage by using what had worked in the past again in the present.
By arguing that if New Deal worked in 1932, then it must surely work now and that I am inconsistent by denying this, you could as well be saying that since Gen. Curtis LeMay had such success with the strategic bombing plans he employed over Japan in 1945, we should have opted to utilize the same strategy in 2003 and fuse the Iraqi landscape into blackened glass over the course of months of perpetual bombing runs before ever setting a boot down on the ground. We defeated Japan without ever setting foot on the main islands in 1945... why couldn't we have done that each and every time we fought since? Because it wasn't the model we needed to follow, that's why.
Now, if you want to talk about FDR and his failings, we can do that too. He was incapable of understanding that Keyenes and his economic theory said that spending should go up while taxes went down. He continually sought to keep taxes high (especially on the richest portion of Americans) in a forlorn hope of having a balanced budget... and that mentality remained entrenched until Reagan came to office in 1981. In fact, it remains entrenched to this day... and that IS a legacy of both FDR and the "liberal, progressive" agenda that Wilson, Truman and every Democrat since has maintained and strengthened. This false assumption (or misunderstanding, if you will) has an easy and very specific counter in Ronald Reagan and the success of his 1981 tax cuts... and THAT is the counter to what FDR and every other Democrat since has failed to grasp.
He was incapable of compromise (I think), at least politically... and while this trait may have served him well as a war-time President, it didn't make for a smooth-running domestic agenda and forced many representative office holders into untenable positions by default. He intentionally placed people into cabinet positions that either couldn't do the job or couldn't work effectively with other cabinet members, just so he could remain the focus of public attention. This worked well when things were going well, but he paid the price when things went wrong (NRA, the Court-stacking scandal, etc). Presidents that followed that example paid the price, as well... Richard Nixon jumps to mind.
I will openly admit that a 80% and higher tax bracket and astronomical corporate tax rates (more than 14 of them) kept the recovery from the depression at a far slower pace then it needed to be. I cannot deny that there WAS a recession in 1938 (called the Roosevelt Recession) that resulted from a demand for a balanced budget by a new Republican majority in the Congress. I disagree with you on why that recession happened (thus, the perpetual argument that the "great depression" lasted through WWII and didn't, in fact end in 1934), but it did happen... along with five other recessions since then, the most recent in 2008. I maintain that no depression has occurred since 1934, though... thus ending a 140-year cycle of boom-bust economics that plagued America since its inception, even though you and I still seem to disagree on WHY that cycle ended when it did.
On my list of Presidential rankings, there is an association with Presidents that embraced compromise and watered-down actions and their position at the bottom of the list. It isn't the ONLY criteria, but it is a big factor. My worst Presidents have all been "compromisers" of the first order... and no one can say FDR was that. He was, at the time of his death, one of the most popular Presidents of all time, and he won resounding election victories time and time again (four times, to be exact). I am STILL of the opinion that (removing WWII from the equation, as you asked) he was elected to fix a national crisis by a population that demanded action... any action... and he delivered by doing what had never been done before and even some things that were deemed later to be un-Constitutional in order to answer that demand. Since his time in office, the nation has seen an era of economic growth and success that surpasses anything that came before... and while I am NOT giving him credit for all of that, I can't say that any of his policies or actions as President prevented or even hampered that success in later decades.
I understand that you are of the opinion that all success since 1932 happened in spite of FDR... and that is the part of this discussion that we seem unable to get past.
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