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| Which presidential candidate would most likely fix the U.S. economy? |
| Hillary Clinton |
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20% |
[ 6 ] |
| Barack Obama |
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10% |
[ 3 ] |
| John Edwards |
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0% |
[ 0 ] |
| Mitt Romney |
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13% |
[ 4 ] |
| Ron Paul |
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44% |
[ 13 ] |
| John McCain |
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0% |
[ 0 ] |
| Mike Huckabee |
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6% |
[ 2 ] |
| Rudy Giuliani |
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0% |
[ 0 ] |
| Dennis Kucinich |
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3% |
[ 1 ] |
| Fred Thompson |
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0% |
[ 0 ] |
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| Total Votes : 29 |
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Rteacher
Joined: 23 May 2005
Location: Western MA, USA
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 Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2008 3:54 am Post subject: |
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There's a lot of economic data related to FDR in this Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_D._Roosevelt
My parents and grandparents considered him the greatest President.
Most of the panel of jounalists on Chis Matthew's show (shown this evening on AFN) thought that Romney had the best background of successful economic turnarounds - including the Olympics.
One panelist expected that if he got the nomination his health-care plan for Massachusetts (which he co-authored with Ted Kennedy) would be reclaimed by his campaign to good advantage. (Currently his campaign strategy is to distance himself from it to placate conservatives in his party.) |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2008 1:22 pm Post subject: |
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Ya-Ta, the fact is that FDR had not improved unemployment by 1937.
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It's not the government's job to provide jobs for the millions. That is what business is for. But what do you do when the business doesn't do it?
When you go from the full employment of the 20's to the mass unemployment of the 30's, it is no exaggeration to say that capitalism failed. The jobs FDR's policies created were not meant to be permanent. They were a stop-gap measure to give the capitalists time to recover and get things moving again. When Uncle Clarence joined the CCC he was sent to build roads in the Rockies. He didn't think he'd hired on to his life's work. He knew it was a way to have some money in his pocket so he could spend it to stimulate the economy.
Again, FDR's achievement was psychological, not economic.
It's also a mistake to look only at the US in the 30's. The whole world was in a depression. You can't export if the foreigners are unemployed and don't have the money to buy; you can't import if the people at home are unemployed and can't afford to buy. Every major country needed to recover at more or less the same time to get the world out of the Depression.
Edit:
A-ha! I was looking for a quote to support my position and scored a homerun. This paragraph is taken from EJ Dionne's article on the FDR monument: FDR explained his approach in May 1932 in one of his best-known comments: "The country needs, and unless I mistake its temper, the country demands, bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it; if it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something." Roosevelt not only prepared the country for action but also for the likelihood that not everything he would do would work.
In the same article it quotes Newt Gingrich (!!!): "The fact is," Gingrich declared, "that it was Franklin Roosevelt who gave hope to a nation that was in despair and could have slid into dictatorship."
The whole article is worthwhile: Roosevelt, America's Original Man From Hope
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/tours/fdr/legacy.htm |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2008 3:18 pm Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
It's also a mistake to look only at the US in the 30's. The whole world was in a depression. You can't export if the foreigners are unemployed and don't have the money to buy; you can't import if the people at home are unemployed and can't afford to buy. Every major country needed to recover at more or less the same time to get the world out of the Depression.
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But FDR never even tried.
Although Hoover enacted the Hawley-Smoot tariff, FDR declined to touch it.
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Although the tariff act was passed after the stock-market Crash of 1929, many economic historians consider the political discussion leading up to the passing of the act as a factor in causing the crash and/or the recession that began in late 1929, and its eventual passage as a factor in deepening the Great Depression.[2] Unemployment was at 7.8% in 1930 when the Smoot-Hawley tariff was passed, but it jumped to 16.3% in 1931, 24.9% in 1932, and 25.1% in 1933.[2]
As America and European countries increasingly resorted to protectionism as an economic policy, the general amount of international trade radically decreased, causing the world economy to contract and unemployment to soar to previously unheard-of levels and to continue for a much longer duration than previous recessions had lasted.
As a result of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff and other countries' responses to it, the post-World War II world saw a push towards multilateral trading agreements that would prevent a similar situation from unfolding. This led to the Bretton Woods Agreement in 1944 and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in the 1950s.
Abolitionalists of Smoot-Hawley argue that it angered major trading partners who retaliated. Canada for example raised its tariffs and forged closer economic links with the British Commonwealth, and U.S.-Canada trade plunged. France and Britain protested and developed new trade avenues. Germany developed a system of autarky. Imports plunged two-thirds from $4.4 billion (1929) to $1.5 billion (1933), exports fell from $5.4 billion to $2.1 billion, in both cases far more than the 50% fall in Gross Domestic Product. The tremendous drop in foreign trade was a stunning shock to the proponents of Smoot-Hawley, and effectively destroyed advocacy of high tariffs in the U.S. |
You make it sound as if international economic conditions just went poor. Its not the case, Hoover caused it, and FDR refused to address the root cause.
Edit: Here's another problem with FDR. From the article you posted:
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| Ever since Roosevelt took on the Great Depression, presidents have been assumed to be economic stewards. When the economy fails, voters punish them. |
Presidents should not be considered economic stewards. It should be enough that they keep the budget in order, and let the economists do their jobs. Presidents do not have the expertise or background to deal with this kind of thing on a massive scale. |
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2008 6:48 pm Post subject: |
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| Presidents should not be considered economic stewards. It should be enough that they keep the budget in order, and let the economists do their jobs. Presidents do not have the expertise or background to deal with this kind of thing on a massive scale. |
You are being disingenious, Kuros.
I won't get into a debate about 80 year old policy choices. I repeat: FDR's greatness lies in his leadership skills and the hope he gave the common people. His overall strategy was correct. The individual policy choices he made then were controversial and remain so, but it was 80 freakin' years ago and the losers' grandchildren are still complaining about it.
People regard the president...is just an acceptance of reality. Of course people overdo it sometimes, but they recognize the role governments play. Governments are major players in the economic sphere no matter what they do. Build or not build a road from A to B affects the economic future of A and B...and so on.
Presidents seek the best economic advice they can get, but it's no wonder Truman asked for a one-handed economist. Economics is more an art than a science. If it were a science there wouldn't be radically different schools of thought. Economics is more about political agendas than simply running the economy.
I will say this: For someone who is so opposed to FDR, why didn't you know what is probably his 3rd most famous quote, the one that concerns one of your major areas of interest? |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2008 6:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
You are being disingenious, Kuros.
I won't get into a debate about 80 year old policy choices. I repeat: FDR's greatness lies in his leadership skills and the hope he gave the common people. His overall strategy was correct. The individual policy choices he made then were controversial and remain so, but it was 80 freakin' years ago and the losers' grandchildren are still complaining about it. |
FDR was a fantastic leader. I give credit where it is due.
But, the argument over the wisdom of his policies is not about complaining about what he did. I haven't mentioned SS once in this debate! The point is to flesh out what the next Democratic President should do, and whether that President should run economic policy in FDR's legacy or Clinton's.
I'm wholly a fan of the Clinton economic legacy. |
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wannago
Joined: 16 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2008 7:07 pm Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| It's not the government's job to provide jobs for the millions. That is what business is for. But what do you do when the business doesn't do it? |
I find this sentence to be very telling coming from you. Wherever did you get the notion that business exists to provide jobs? Business is for making profits...period. Granted, most businesses need to employ people to make those profits, but their role in an economy is not to provide jobs.
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| When you go from the full employment of the 20's to the mass unemployment of the 30's, it is no exaggeration to say that capitalism failed. |
Well, I guess this naturally flows from you after the sentence above. Capitalism did not fail, it simply made the corrections necessary to maintain an economy. Those corrections were definitely painful to a lot of people as the current corrections are, but I would say capitalism succeeded.
| Quote: |
| When Uncle Clarence joined the CCC he was sent to build roads in the Rockies. He didn't think he'd hired on to his life's work. He knew it was a way to have some money in his pocket so he could spend it to stimulate the economy. |
Your Uncle Clarence was thinking that he would have some money to stimulate the economy? Wow, what a "big picture" kind of guy!
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| Again, FDR's achievement was psychological, not economic. |
This we agree on. It was all smoke and mirrors.
| Quote: |
Edit:
A-ha! I was looking for a quote to support my position and scored a homerun. This paragraph is taken from EJ Dionne's article on the FDR monument: FDR explained his approach in May 1932 in one of his best-known comments: "The country needs, and unless I mistake its temper, the country demands, bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it; if it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something." Roosevelt not only prepared the country for action but also for the likelihood that not everything he would do would work. |
That's for sure. Including making sure the U.S. got militarily involved in the deadliest conflict in history. If nothing else worked (and nothing really did), then lets make sure we get involved in this big war to stimulate the economy. Hey, what's almost 300,000 lives when Uncle Franklin's reputation is at stake? |
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wannago
Joined: 16 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2008 7:20 pm Post subject: |
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| ok ok, back to the topic at hand. I would say NO ONE on that list is best suited to "fix" the economy because it isn't btroken. I would say the best person to fix the economy is the economy itself. This isn't the first troubled period and it won't be the last. To think that some president can fix it is fantasy. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 12:32 am Post subject: |
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FDR was a fantastic leader. I give credit where it is due.
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Thanks for clearing that up. It wasn't coming across to me earlier in the thread. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 12:39 am Post subject: |
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As Pluto hints at, above, this question and these poll choices pressupose that natl leaders wield more power and influence than they actually do ref the natl economy, which, too, exists within a larger world-system context. Presidents receive the praise and the blame, depending on how the natl economy performs. But do presidents truly influence these trends or are they just along for the ride, like everybody else...?
Viva Great Man Theory. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 2:42 am Post subject: |
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| Viva Great Man Theory. |
I've always considered this one of the Great Straw Man arguments among historians. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 3:22 am Post subject: |
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In the United States, in the last fourteen years, a total of coal-miners, greater than our entire standing army, has been killed and injured. The United States Bureau of Labour states that during the year 1908, there were between 30,000 and 35,000 deaths of workers by accidents, while 200,000 more were injured. In fact, the safest place for a working-man is in the army. And even if that army be at the front, fighting in Cuba or South Africa, the soldier in the ranks has a better chance for life than the working-man at home.
"The Human Drift"
Jack London
While man�s increasing efficiency of food-production, combined with colonisation of whole virgin continents, has for generations given the apparent lie to Malthus� mathematical statement of the Law of Population, nevertheless the essential significance of his doctrine remains and cannot be challenged. Population does press against subsistence. And no matter how rapidly subsistence increases, population is certain to catch up with it. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 8:28 am Post subject: |
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All right, then. Which American president caused the Depression and which American president made the right decisions to end it? Can we truly best understand the Depression and recovery through Hoover and FDR's policies?
Recessions and depressions only occur under bad leadership? And the reverse for bull markets and economic growth? Natl leaders and their decisions matter more than the market's behavior, structures and institutions, and people's perceptions at the bottom?
If so, why do the Fed Reserve and other central banks worldwide not sit back and masterfully orchestrate their natl economies...? |
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Tiger Beer
Joined: 07 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 8:50 am Post subject: |
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Bush asked for 1% to the Feds to stimulate the economy back during the beginning of the War in Iraq. Things were looking kinda ugly at that time, and that was his influence then.
The US money devoted to the War in Iraq is the biggest drain on American resources.
Because of both of those reasons, based on the current President's choices and decisions, are what put us in the predicament we are in now.
So, I'd say yes, Presidents and the policys they push/support have an effect on our economy. |
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Pluto
Joined: 19 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 9:07 am Post subject: |
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| Tiger Beer wrote: |
The US money devoted to the War in Iraq is the biggest drain on American resources.
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Wrong, operations in Iraq are just a drop in the bucket compared to our government dependency programs. Also, needless pork barrel spending(yes, I realize Republicans are guilty too) dwarf the costs of Iraq.
I love how lefties frame how Iraq is killing our economy when in fact the whole DoD budget is about 4.5% of GDP. -- What are the costs of social security, medicare and other government dependency programs.
Like I said, people acting in a free market economy free from government taxes, regulation and interference is the best thing for our economy; this in turn will increase risk, innovation, investment and, yes, even job growth. |
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