Can we learn from the Great Depression and the New Deal and apply it to now? (mortgages, buying)

[jonbenson]

Can we learn from the Great Depression and the New Deal and apply insight gained from that to apply to now?

[homelessinseattle]

The Great Depression actually happened. The New Deal is a pipe dream.

[jonbenson]

Originally Posted by homelessinseattle

The Great Depression actually happened. The New Deal is a pipe dream.

Are there lessons from the Great Depression that we can use or is the world too differentnow for them to be applicable?

[msgsing]

The New Deal was a federal plan to stimulate the economy and get the nation back to work. It did help to a certain extent. However most of the economic gain and recovery was due to an unforeseen world war that created a demand for military hardware both during the war itself and later for Cold War defense projects.

[redguard57]

People blow the New Deal out of proportion to what it really was. The programs were not as big as the pop history makes it seem. It had really good PR, but the reason it did not resolve the depression was that it wasn't big enough. People act like it was this enormous nationwide thing, but it wasn't. It was a lot of small projects in various places that woud employ a few hundred here or there. Occasionally there were big projects such as Bonneville Dam, but those were

E.g.: one of the biggest programs, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) employed 3 million people, total, over the 9 years of its existence. It never employed more than 300,000 people at any one time.

Well, there were 15 million unemployed in 1933. 300k did not make a huge dent.

[Thatsright19]

Originally Posted by redguard57

People blow the New Deal out of proportion to what it really was. The programs were not as big as the pop history makes it seem. It had really good PR, but the reason it did not resolve the depression was that it wasn't big enough. People act like it was this enormous nationwide thing, but it wasn't. It was a lot of small projects in various places that woud employ a few hundred here or there. Occasionally there were big projects such as Bonneville Dam, but those were

E.g.: one of the biggest programs, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) employed 3 million people, total, over the 9 years of its existence. It never employed more than 300,000 people at any one time.

Well, there were 15 million unemployed in 1933. 300k did not make a huge dent.

I mean, in 2009 dollars, the per capita cost of the new deal was $5,200 per man, woman, and child. 2009 recovery act was $2,700. It was 40% of the nations output. 2009 was about 6%.

https://www.stlouisfed.org/publicati...ich-was-bigger

[redguard57]

Originally Posted by Thatsright19

I mean, in 2009 dollars, the per capita cost of the new deal was $5,200 per man, woman, and child. 2009 recovery act was $2,700. It was 40% of the nations output. 2009 was about 6%.

https://www.stlouisfed.org/publicati...ich-was-bigger

I imagine that's taking into account the entire New Deal, not all of which were works projects. E.g. banking reform and all that. And of course much of the ARRA was tax cuts, aid to states, etc...

We didn't really have a welfare state at the federal level before the New Deal - it was what created it. And the military was a small little thing. That explains the % of gdp.

[djohnslaw]

Originally Posted by redguard57

People blow the New Deal out of proportion to what it really was. The programs were not as big as the pop history makes it seem. It had really good PR, but the reason it did not resolve the depression was that it wasn't big enough. People act like it was this enormous nationwide thing, but it wasn't. It was a lot of small projects in various places that woud employ a few hundred here or there. Occasionally there were big projects such as Bonneville Dam, but those were

E.g.: one of the biggest programs, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) employed 3 million people, total, over the 9 years of its existence. It never employed more than 300,000 people at any one time.

Well, there were 15 million unemployed in 1933. 300k did not make a huge dent.

Sure. Even worse is high school history teachers tell has FDR was a great president when he was actually a deplorable one- almost everything he did was a total failure. Additionally he was a racist locking Japanese Americans, many who were born here in prisons and stealing their businesses as well as robbing the American public of their gold. The PWA was a good use of tax money so I'll give him that.

[Astral_Weeks]

Originally Posted by djohnslaw

Sure. Even worse is high school history teachers tell has FDR was a great president when he was actually a deplorable one- almost everything he did was a total failure. Additionally he was a racist locking Japanese Americans, many who were born here in prisons and stealing their businesses as well as robbing the American public of their gold. The PWA was a good use of tax money so I'll give him that.

By your logic, I guess Lincoln was a horrible President because by today's standards he held racist views towards blacks. Never mind that under his leadership slavery was abolished in the USA.

Roosevelt created the Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC) in 1941 which was the most important federal move in support of the rights of African Americans between Reconstruction and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The President's order stated that the federal government would not hire any person based on their race, color, creed, or national origin.

I am not excusing the tragic historical decision regarding internment but the totality of one's record does matter.

Bigger picture FDR did the following:

1. Help pass and sign Emergency Banking Act in 1933 which prevented financial collapse;
2. FDIC/Glass Steagall;
3. Social Security Act;
4. Fair Labor Standards Act
5. Fair Employment Practices Committee (see above)
6. Helped lead the Allies in the defeat of Nazism;

Not what most would call a deplorable or mediocre record.

[djohnslaw]

Originally Posted by Astral_Weeks

By your logic, I guess Lincoln was a horrible President because by today's standards he held racist views towards blacks. Never mind that under his leadership slavery was abolished in the USA.

Roosevelt created the Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC) in 1941 which was the most important federal move in support of the rights of African Americans between Reconstruction and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The President's order stated that the federal government would not hire any person based on their race, color, creed, or national origin.

I am not excusing the tragic historical decision regarding internment but the totality of one's record does matter.

Bigger picture FDR did the following:

1. Help pass and sign Emergency Banking Act in 1933 which prevented financial collapse;
2. FDIC/Glass Steagall;
3. Social Security Act;
4. Fair Labor Standards Act
5. Fair Employment Practices Committee (see above)
6. Helped lead the Allies in the defeat of Nazism;

Not what most would call a deplorable or mediocre record.

Actually what many people call a deplorable record.

How many blacks did Lincoln throw in jail for being black? Sorry but saying today's standards for racism are different than they were back then isn't an excuse for what FDR did. And lincoln was president 70 years before FDR first took office- despite that FDR was far more racist. If you want to use the standards of the day, Lincoln is way more enlightened than FDR who wasn't enlightened at all.

1) Emegency banking act/fdic is you combining 2 things into 1
The FDIC also charges banks the same amount per dollar insured regardless of risk is is absolutely absurd.
It also can't begin to actually insure all money at banks if we ever have a real bank run.
But it's is a good physiological tool and overall this was good.

3) social security is a glorified forced ponzi scheme. calling this good is hilarious. what started out as a 1 percent contribution is now over 6 from both the employer and employee.Anyone with half of brain would be way better off never paying a cent into social security and investing for themselves. FDR wasn't stupid and he knew this was a completely unsustainable scam.

4)parts of this are good and parts of it are really bad

5) a mostly hallow act with almost zero actual authority. It doesn't remotely compared to the 1964 civil rights act let alone freeing the slaves so I'm not sure why you even tried to make that comparison. whatever little good it did is more that cancelled out by the horrible treatment of Japanese citizens. Additionally The Federal Housing Administration as part of the new deal prevented blacks from getting mortgages that whites could get and led to even further segregation that would take decades to undo.
He absolutely was NOT a good president for civil rights. In fact he was horrible overall. And yet you compared him to the President who freed the slaves.

6)His inaction helped the rise of Nazism to begin with. He also could have saved a lot more Jews if he acted earlier.Those Nazis put Jews in concentration camps. FDR putting Japanese citizens in them is only better than Hitler because he wasn't also killing them.He was also a huge fan of Mussolini.

You conveniently left out how much money he stole from American citizens during a Depression.
And the fact his actions dragged it out way longer than it should have lasted.
And if it wasn't for the war it would have dragged out even further.

Some other horrible things he did

1) trying to pack the Supreme Court a gross overreach of presidential power. He wanted to be a dictator not a president.
2)had farmers burn food despite the country being filled with starving people on the idiotic notion that if the supply of food decreased prices for food would increase. the problem was people weren't buying food because they couldn't afford it.

3) was against an anti-lynching bill because it would cost him votes. sounds like he really cared about black people.
4) was completely against a free press

4)overall financially the new deal was a disaster and the economy was terrible for the duration of his 3 plus terms in large part due to his terrible financial policies. I mean it's really incredible that someone who was president as long as he was, who always had a TERRIBLE economy could be considered a good president.
He even issued an executive order that would tax people at 100 percent of their income over 25k a year because none of his moronic financial policies helped anyone, which Congress repealed.

Like I said he did a few good things. Anyone good is going to do a few bad things and almost anyone bad is going to do a few good things. He had over 12 years as president and threw enough **** at the wall that a little bit of it stuck. Overall he was a deplorable president as I stated earlier, especially economically.