The war made the auto industry spend on new tooling to build jeep, truck and tank parts. Once the war ended they started making huge number of cars. To be honest the auto industry "ended" the problem but the war helped the auto industry. Things were not great during the war by any means with rationing and extreme limits. I don't think anyone car argue that FDR did any better than what Hoover could have done. No one can really know for sure. What we do know is that we cannot afford to buy ourselves out of this problem.
I was upset about this too at first, but it seems that CBS realized at the last minute that it would screw over the people on the Eastern half of the country if they still tried to show HIMYM, so they pushed back the new episode until next week. There was no new episode last night anywhere in the country.
The opinion completely ignored the massive labor strikes that occured in 1938. The great depression was hurt by a massive increase in the income tax rate. From 25% before to 91%. That started with Hoover, he tried to grow the government before FDR did. They both spent government money and raised taxes, and the recession lasted for over a decade. Most new deal programs were complete failures. Too many temporary programs became permanent.
I think the discussion of the New Deal is dumb when you consider that people where starving back then. If thousands of people were starving or freezing to death because of no heat then I would support it. In today's case of WE HAVE TRILLIONS IN DEBT it does not seem to make much sense.
The odd thing about history is that Harding was incredibly popular in his own day. Harding is the anti-Truman. Remember that he had been dead and Coolidge had been President for less than a year when he overwhelmingly won the election, basically on Harding's platform. Can you imagine Ford winning re-election on Nixon's platform? Historians generally consider him "one of the worst ever" because he didn't "do anything" to stand out, and the Teapot Dome Scandal. But the 1920's were a great time for our country, and the Teapot Dome Scandal pales in comparison to scandals by Andrew Jackson, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, or W. Besides, historians now generally consider the miserable failure that was Truman administration to be pretty good, so I don't care much what they think.
Quite possibly the greatest demonstration of historical illiteracy I've seen in this forum. The vast majority of people, from economists and historians to my grandfather and great aunt, do argue that FDR did better than Hoover.
IT is odd that you criticize an article for being opinion piece and then post an article about people's opinions. The numbers show how the economy grew during the new deal. 9-10% on average per year except the period where spending was pulled back. I have yet to see any figures that show it was a failure. The new deal did have some problems without a doubt. But on the whole it was effective.
I saw this post on the Freakonomics blog today and thought it was somewhat relevant to the discussion here: tax cuts vs. government spending According to the guy quoted here, government spending is our best option, as tax cuts could in fact deepen the recession.
The first two or three pages of this thread read like a right-wing reactionary circle jerk. HILARIOUS
