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TR certainly did not lack moral or physical courage. He also had plenty of political courage to push the trust busting policies through congress. The Republican Party has gone a long way in the wrong direction between Teddy Roosevelt and the current patron of privilege George Bush.
There is still a lot of unrecognized bad debt floating around in the financial sector that is off the books, much more than what caused some of them to go bankrupt. Investors know this and weary of investing because once it comes out (i.e. the companies can't hide it anymore), its game over... why invest in a market ridden with hidden risks of the subprime mess? So the good news means little when the bigger picture is one with a big fat bear trashing the DOW...
Wake up America! This has happened before. Fortunately for us 100 years ago we had Teddy Roosevelt, a man of principle and passion, as president. He deplored the lazy, destructive actions of his privileged-class members. The following quote from Theodore Roosevelt, Preacher of Righteousness sums it up:
"No man is worth much anywhere if he does not possess both moral and physical courage." Apparently a great many of his own class no longer did. They were too busy "speculating in stocks and wrecking railroads," while allowing their sons "to lead lives of expensive idleness and gross debauchery."
What eerie parallels. Now we have speculating in commodities and wrecking banks. Many of the regulatory safeguards that Roosevelt instituted or strengthened have been weakened or erased over the past 20 years and the same corrupt behavior rerears its ugly head through a series of complicated financial "exoctics" designed to relieve the average person of what little money they have managed to put into their 401k (another sore subject of organized manipulation of other peoples' money, think IndyMac).
Wrong Roosevelt.
Teddy was the twenty-second President, from 1901-1909.
Franklin D. was the thirty-second President, from 1933-1945, and set up all the Government Agencies of the "New Deal", such as the FDIC, which insures banks. I think those are the "regulatory safeguards", that came about during/after the Depression, to which you refer.
It all started with Teddy Roosevelt and his trust busting enactment of the Sherman Act and other regulatory tools. He layed out the "Square Deal" which his distant cousin, FDR, incorporated many of his ideas in his "New Deal."
Teddy Roosevelt was very much aware of the dangerous behavior of personal pursuit of wealth at any cost for the privileged class with an apathetic disregard to civic responsibilities and ensuring that key principles set forth in the constitution were being afforded to all Americans. Although he was successful changing some corporate behavior the country's behavior did not change until the crash of 1929 ended the party.
Ultimately, Teddy Roosevelt split from his own party in the 1912 presidential election and ran under the Progressive/Bull Moose party label. He returned to the Republican party after his loss.
Teddy Roosevelt's efforts did result in the curbing of egregious abuse of labor by monopolistic businesses with outcomes such as the 8 hour workday as well as child and women's labor laws. He also helped usher in Women's right to vote.
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