Alright Crixus, don't lose your head...

I'm kidding, clearly I was the author of the more aggressive tone yesterday. Lets hope I fair better against "Titus."

Since we're clarifying, I have 4 items...

1.) Am I to understand that your recent point about New Deal's, I guess you'd call it "contribution", to WWII via the infrastructure in place to facilitate a swift rush to a war footing, is a "redeeming factoid", but not by any means a justification for calling New Deal a success? I'll let you have that so long as we agree that doesn't justify New Deal as a response to economic crisis. Also, I hasten to add, if that is indeed the case (infrastructure aiding the war effort is a "redeeming factoid") then certainly you give large credit to Hoover, for in his waining months (the last year in particular) he did an about face on government intervention, relief, public works, etc (it is the "Hoover Dam" after all). Politically it wouldn't have mattered if he handed out gold bricks, you simply don't get reelected after Black Friday, period. But in truth he became very protectionist and pro public works (I rate that a mistake, no question) near the end. So in fact to claim New Deal had any level of success (from beating the Imperial Japanese to beating the Great Depression) is to say that FDR and Hoover won those battles. Yes?

2.) I've heard you mention, as a justification of New Deal, the phrase "We haven't had a depression since." That is true. I'm curious though. Wasn't it something like 90% of New Deal that was either thrown out by the court or went away via sunset clauses? That's a number I heard Jambo toss out once and I think he's right. I've contended in the past that the single biggest offense FDR committed was causing rampant uncertainty in the market place because the majority of his legislation had 1 year expirations, thus had to be renewed annually. Not all were renewed, new 1 year laws were introduced, and businesses didn't know what the regulations and taxes governing their life were going to be year to year... THAT alone is a recipe for disaster. And as I've said, that was (in my opinion) a more disruptive approach (to recovery) than the policies themselves. So my "item" is this - what aspects of New Deal have contributed to there having not been a depression since? You certainly seem to believe there is a correlation. If the vast majority of New Deal either expired or was thrown out, what is that correlation which has protected us low these many years since New Deal expired? If you can not point to the specifics, even vagaries, of what that correlation is, shouldn't you cease using the "we haven't had a depression since" defense?

3.)You've read my posit on FDR's greatest offense - the way he governed via legislation was in 1 year increments, thus causing mass uncertainty. This is important to note if you agree that "uncertainty" is what most hinders private sector growth (via taxes, regulation, loan rates, etc, etc). You have also read FDR's "Second Bill of Rights." It is breathtakingly more radical a speech than anything Barack H. Obama would dare admit to. Holding both of these in consideration, let me ask you this as item #3: do you think that had FDR lived another 12 years lets say, or in other words remained president for a significant time post WWII, would America have had the 1950's boom? Before you answer I want you to think about what the implementation of that second bill of rights would have meant legislatively (every time I read it I still end with mouth gaping that an American president said this, especially in an address to the nation).

4.) In 1938 we had what was called the "Roosevelt Recession." The Republican congress insisted on cutting off the government breast milk of cheap, plentiful cash to the nation, and balance the budget. We almost immediately crashed. Now, I think we would both agree that an economy that is propped up by the government - rather than the other way around - is NOT a healthy one, and certainly not one which has "recovered." So wouldn't the natural conclusion be that propping up economies via massive government spending, works, etc, is at best a temporary morphine drip? In other words, it can provide immediate pain relief but is hardly the surgery required to fix the problem. And what's worse, if  for an extended period of time you only treat the symptom - pain - then you run the risk of addicting that patient to morphine, compounding the problem. This is such blisteringly clear logic to me that I MUST assume you agree. And if you do agree with this line of reasoning, weren't New Deal, or Obama's multi-stimulus bills, doomed to fail (at actually fixing the economy) from the start?

As an aside I think that a much stronger position for a "pro-New Deal" argument is to say, "No it didn't fix the economy, but it did provide direct relief. And if that direct relief means we recover in 10 years rather than 3, than I'd rather spend 10 years living with partial pain than 3 years living with dire pain." Essentially saying you are trading A for B. I would question the wisdom in such a trade, but at least that's a defensible position because you are knowingly making that swap. THEN we can have a legitimate debate about whether, as a nation, we would rather have a slow but less painful recovery, or a quick but extremely painful one (this of course assumes that you buy into the formula that low taxes and deregulation means economies can recover faster, but by definition requires a much lower level of direct relief for those suffering).