Let's FDR our way out of this Economy.

[LordBalfor]

Originally Posted by Moth

Oerdin, please! It is, at the very least, inadequate to post a random bar graph. It is outright dishonest to do so without any analysis. To paraphrase a popular movie, Apes might read philosophy, but they don't understand it.

Those GDP figures are not reflections of real wealth expansion or capital expansion. Its goverment spending. Why don't you just roll out all the impressive economic stats from the USSR. They would only be slightly less credible.

The New Deal increased employment? Yes, because everyone from shoe shine boys to out of work actors to construction workers found themselves on the government payroll. Good grief, don't you know that? Again, the USSR made the same boast although they, like FDR, failed to mention that engineers were now selling newspapers on the government's dime.

Let's see - the New Deal (where the government employed a lot of people and spent a lot of money) was a failure - but WWII (where the government employed EVEN MORE people and spent EVEN MORE money) was a success at ending the Depression? Sounds like the US government needed to get MORE involved during the Depression, not LESS.

Again, it amazes me that some people can continue to make the same silly illogical argument over and over again. These folks continue to belittle the "socialism" of the New Deal but laud the MASSIVE SOCIALISM of the WWII years????????

WWII - the period where for all intents and purposes the US government WAS the US economy - the time when there was virtually no civilian production at all, when there were NO trucks or cars produced for ANYONE other than the GOVERNMENT, when there were NO aircraft or ships produced for ANYONE other than the GOVERNMENT, when even the production of furniture was mostly gobbled up by GOVERNMENT orders, when massive housing projects were going up by the GOVERNMENT to house the thousands of new factory workers flooding into places like Seattle and Cleveland and Los Angeles to work in factories who were all producing products bought by the GOVERNMENT, when everything from gasoline to hamburger was rationed by the GOVERNMENT - is THAT they period you claim ended the Great Depression?

WWII was by FAR the most Socialistic time in American History - an era where the GOVERNMENT controlled and regulated virtually every aspect of Americans lives and completely DOMINATED the economy like no time before or since - pumping tons of money into the economy buying products who's only purpose was to be almost immediately consumed by the war.

And THAT is the era that you claimed ended the Great Depression??????

Sounds like a pretty darned strong argument for Socialism to me.


Ken

[momonkey]

Originally Posted by saganista

Carter was no more responsible for the 1979 Arab Oil Crisis than Nixon was for the one in 1973-74. These sorts of things are why the word exogenous was invented.


Maybe you meant "evidenced by". You can't back up one liability with another one.


It does? Interest paid does not end up as cash (M0), a demand deposit (M1), or a time deposit (M2)? If this is true, I'm going to have to start dumping some Treasuries...they told me I could make money off these things.


How is this relevant to anything? You don't see the loss of some $15 trillion in wealth as a deflationary event for the US?

Only Iran was involved with the 1979 embargo that resulted in a 3.5% reduction of our oil supply. I didn't see any lines.


Congress calls up the GPO and tells them to print up a trillion in new govt bonds. They take the bonds and send them to the fed who exchanges them for cash (M0) that they just printed. The bonds are then sold to who ever will buy them. If we have no takers on the bonds, they just print the money.


We've been doing it for decades now. Thank Nixon for that.


If I have 100 apples and 100 dollars I can pay you the apple that I owe you with one dollar. As long as you keep the dollar I have deflation and my apples cost .99 dollars each. When you give the dollar back to me and demand your apple, I have 100 dollars and 99 apples, that inflates my money supply. Now my apples that used to cost .99 dollars costs 1.01.

At a certain point, they'll stop buying our bonds. Then the inflationary hens will come home to roost.

[BigJon3475]

Is that really a good comparison when in one time a government grows while killing off the competition and the other grows in "peace". I think that's why they are usually separated when one refers to economic expansions. We are already considered imperialistic by some. To have our total economy based only on a relentless military buildup (like in WWII) and war along with the destruction of the competition without at least a glimmer or want for peace or digression might not go well with the natives or other future our conquest.

[LordBalfor]

Originally Posted by momonkey

Only Iran was involved with the 1979 embargo that resulted in a 3.5% reduction of our oil supply. I didn't see any lines.

Then clearly you were asleep.
I was the manager of car wash/gas station at the time owned by a large cab company here in Seattle at the time (I was working my way through school) and I remember those days quite clearly. Union Oil (our supplier) cut our access to gas back drastically and the result was that we were forced to adopt a "commerical vehicles only" (red flag) policy in regards to selling gas - in essence this meant selling mostly to the company cabs so that they could keep running and stay in business.

On top of that, the board of directors for the cab company (under pressure from the owners of the company) decided that the owners of the company should be allowed to buy gas for their private vehicles too. Nothing really wrong with that - except that since the cab company was a co-op, where every single cab owner was part owner of the company (and thus part owner of the gas station) - there were around 130 owners - virtually all of whom were WHITE in a predominantly BLACK neighborhood.

The result was that every time one of the customers came in (who were mostly Black) and wanted to buy gasoline - we were forced to tell them that we only had enough gas for commercial vehicles - and of course with that many owners, it was not too uncommon for a personal car owned by one of the white owners to be filling up at the time, so the customer would of course ask "so why is HE buying gas?".

We would of course explain that HE was one of the owners so HE (in effect) already OWNED the gas - and (with 130 owners) just about that time ANOTHER white guy would show up and start pumping gas into HIS private car as well - and the customer would ask "What about HIM?" and we'd have to explain "Well, HE'S an owner too".

You can imagine just how believable THAT sounded and just how WELL all that went over during that racially-charged time.

It was STUPID policy put in place over my personal objection - and it resulted in car wash and gas sales for the business plummeting - not just for the duration of the gas shortage, but for years afterwards since the locals understandably held a grudge.

So, I know FIRST HAND the impact of the gas crises - and if you didn't see any lines, you must have been BLIND.

Ken

PS -

I spent 4 years working working at that place (most of it as assistant manager - since I did not WANT the manager job) - and let me tell you, you don't know what a hellish job is until you have please not 1, not 2 but 130 different bosses. The average "survival rate" of our manager was about 6 months (one of them ended up killing himself, the rest quickly left) and only (finally) agreed to take the jobs after the previous manager shot himself and they couldn't find ANYONE who would take it. I hung on there for another year before I finally threw in the towel and moved on.

It was s*cky job (in an extremely violent neighborhood) who's ONLY redeeming quality was that it paid extremely well - and the worse time of it was during the gas crunch.

Fortunately, those days are LONG gone - both for me and for the country as a whole. Folks complain about nationwide violence now, but it's NOTHING compared to what it was like back then - and having had face-to-face contact with it on a daily basis I can speak from personal experience.

[12GO]

Originally Posted by Oerdin

Illegal drug king? New York Times? Oh, man... Please see a doctor.

You better start reading up on who's involved with your fav. newspaper! Yes, he is considered a south of the US border real estate mogul now, but that isn't where he started!!!