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There was the NRA national recovery act. There was the CCC civilian conservation corp. approximately 70 percent of the population lived on farms in the 30s. Things were different than now. People were used to not having things. The programs of the progressives were very popular. Even though the conservatives tried to destroy them then down to this very day. Until FDR and the new deal there were no safety nets. Things were much harder during the GD than now. We think its bad at 9 percent unemployment but during the GD it was 22 to 25 percent. And to top it off it was started because of no regulation on wall street. Many of the regulations put in place to stop another GD have been weakened or outright repealed by the Neocons.
Yes. And there was no FDIC or anything like that. If you had money in the bank and the bank failed - your money was just gone. Speculation created a huge bubble on Wall Street - and when it burst, the ripple effect was far and wide. But there were other things too, like the Dust Bowl. PBS did a great mini-series on the Dust Bowl that shows in graphic detail the devastation. There were actually huge dust clouds that spread east to the major cities. Farms were just wiped out. The Federal Gov went in developing and teaching new farming techniques and replanting trees, etc... The CCC had workers in many National and State parks all over the country. I have a great uncle who worked in Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Park and I've walked many a trail made by the CCC in TN (and other) parks. The Crash was in 1929. FDR wasn't inaugurated until 1933 - by that time things had been really bad for years. He hit the ground running (so to speak and no pun intended on his polio) - the First 100 Days of the New Deal started things in the right direction. He also started the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to bring cheap electricity to the Appalachians and rural South. A lot of jobs were created in public works. They didn't pay a lot but they did useful things and gave men their dignity back.
But hopefully not the fit throwing, accusatory, denigrating, indignant kind.
Here goes......I think one issue about those days is that people truly were starving and in a bad way. Government programs provided literal survival for many back then.
Now keep in mind that conservatives pretty much thought (like they do today) that government programs weren't the answer. Private charities and churches would take up the slack. But times were too desperate.
Many in those days were ashamed to take the federal aid but it meant the difference between surviving and starving. They and their families had suffered complete destitution for a while prior to the arrival of aid and jobs programs.
Contrast that to today where people have been able to access federal aid from prenatal to death in some form or another. They just don't have the perspective of those people in the 30s who were bailed out by programs. The oldtimers made up what we call the Yellow Dogs because of their thankfulness to the dems for getting them through those times. These days, people receiving help, in many cases never went through anything like the depression so they are, as a group, less appreciative than people from those days. Just human nature.
All in all, we should be grateful that nobody has to starve in our country anymore, however we should demand more of those who receive entitlements in terms of generating some productivity to society.
But hopefully not the fit throwing, accusatory, denigrating, indignant kind.
Here goes......I think one issue about those days is that people truly were starving and in a bad way. Government programs provided literal survival for many back then.
Now keep in mind that conservatives pretty much thought (like they do today) that government programs weren't the answer. Private charities and churches would take up the slack. But times were too desperate.
Many in those days were ashamed to take the federal aid but it meant the difference between surviving and starving. They and their families had suffered complete destitution for a while prior to the arrival of aid and jobs programs.
Contrast that to today where people have been able to access federal aid from prenatal to death in some form or another. They just don't have the perspective of those people in the 30s who were bailed out by programs. The oldtimers made up what we call the Yellow Dogs because of their thankfulness to the dems for getting them through those times. These days, people receiving help, in many cases never went through anything like the depression so they are, as a group, less appreciative than people from those days. Just human nature.
All in all, we should be grateful that nobody has to starve in our country anymore, however we should demand more of those who receive entitlements in terms of generating some productivity to society.
It's okay to sound like a conservative. What demands do you suggest we make on the welfare recipients?
My grandfather, child of the depression, looked at it as giving hope. Giving a man a job, any job, was better then nothing. My family were small farmers, so they didn't need assistance, they had plenty to eat. Of course there were 16 people in a 4 room house also.
The war ended the depression, but Roosevelt kept us from falling apart, until the war began.
The Depression lasted 10 years and no nations were holding us hostage and hurting us with sanctions. You call that holding us together? I call that stopping us from recovering.
The Depression lasted 10 years and no nations were holding us hostage and hurting us with sanctions. You call that holding us together? I call that stopping us from recovering.
Which is why I asked, what was supposed to get us out, if WW2 wasn't there?
Which is why I asked, what was supposed to get us out, if WW2 wasn't there?
As long as the same policies were in place I doubt we would have anytime soon. We suffered from a depression within a depression in late '36 early '37 because of more government manipulation in the free markets when FDR once again set wages in certain industries.
The economy wasn't very good during the war too. Once the war ended AND price/wage controls went away, we came out of our depression. When you take away one of the factors used in competitive industries, price, then the quality suffers from that lack of competition.
The Depression lasted 10 years and no nations were holding us hostage and hurting us with sanctions. You call that holding us together? I call that stopping us from recovering.
There is a theory that FDR didn't spend enough to get out of the depression. Many countries were afflicted with the economic woes, but the ones the decoupled the currency from gold and the ones that invested heavily did best. A lot of German support for Hilter was due to his spending that greatly improved the German economy of the 30ies.
As long as the same policies were in place I doubt we would have anytime soon. We suffered from a depression within a depression in late '36 early '37 because of more government manipulation in the free markets when FDR once again set wages in certain industries.
The economy wasn't very good during the war too. Once the war ended AND price/wage controls went away, we came out of our depression. When you take away one of the factors used in competitive industries, price, then the quality suffers from that lack of competition.
err No, what gets us out of the Depression is the War.
WWII results in full employment as able body men are drafted and sent to fight. However there was rationing which limits what people can buy and the rationing forced people to save money rather than spend it.
The rationing also created pent up demand since a large number of things were no longer produced during the war(autos, refrigerator, Television(it existed back then but was a rich man’s toy), Radios( You could repair your radio, not get a new one or at least not without permission) tractors, even things like Stockings and Bras not produced). New construction ceased, Color Film reserved for cartons only. Basically Americans end the war with cash and with lots of stuff needed/wanted like say tires (produced but you were limited in how many you could get in a timeframe). There was a short uncertain period after the war(i.e. would the Depression return?) and some unemployment due to factories retooling for peace time production but that was short.
War Spending and European Spending for recovery are what get us out of the Depression and kept it from repeating in the short term. By the time we got done with Germany they could not product a lot of products nor could France and many other nations involved in WWII.
US steel went to rebuild Germany and to a degree Japan. Europe was also in desperate need of food as the war had ravaged farms, the US farms produced a lot of the food that kept Britain able to fight and produced the Food which allowed Western Europe to get back on it's feet. During the war Britian bought arms from the US(the Spritfire for instance is produced both in the US and Britain).
Basically WWII reduced the number of men vieing for jobs driving wages up as well as Increased savings as people couldn't waste money on non essential products (which helped drive the financial industry) and probaly helped with the transition.
err No, what gets us out of the Depression is the War.
WWII results in full employment as able body men are drafted and sent to fight.
We replaced the best workers with lower quality, inexperienced workers. All good people I'm sure, but doing that is bad for business.
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Originally Posted by chirack
However there was rationing which limits what people can buy and the rationing forced people to save money rather than spend it.
There was nothing of value to purchase. What difference does it make if you work and cant purchase quality goods or you don't work much and cant afford them? We the people were spending very little during the war. How does that help the economy during the war years?
I'm being facetious but should we quit producing and importing quality products to forcepeople to save in order to have good economic times?
Quote:
Originally Posted by chirack
The rationing also created pent up demand since a large number of things were no longer produced during the war(autos, refrigerator, Television(it existed back then but was a rich man’s toy), Radios( You could repair your radio, not get a new one or at least not without permission) tractors, even things like Stockings and Bras not produced). New construction ceased, Color Film reserved for cartons only. Basically Americans end the war with cash and with lots of stuff needed/wanted like say tires (produced but you were limited in how many you could get in a timeframe). There was a short uncertain period after the war(i.e. would the Depression return?) and some unemployment due to factories retooling for peace time production but that was short.
The short answer. Americans didn't produce much of value and therefore couldn't buy much of value because it mainly went towards the war effort.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chirack
War Spending and European Spending for recovery are what get us out of the Depression and kept it from repeating in the short term.
You haven't offered any proof except to back up what I said about not much being available or produced and the workforce was of lower quality. Those two examples are proof the economy isn't doing to well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chirack
By the time we got done with Germany they could not product a lot of products nor could France and many other nations involved in WWII.
Because the war took away our competition. Nothing to do with government spending getting us out of it. Unless you want to count killing people to get rid of competition as an economic measure.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chirack
US steel went to rebuild Germany and to a degree Japan.
Steel I'm glad you brought that up as it shows more proof of FDRs price fixing.
Collusion had become so widespread that one Department of Interior official complained of receiving identical bids from a protected industry (steel) on 257 different occasions between mid-1935 and mid-1936. The bids were not only identical but also 50 percent higher than foreign steel prices. Without competition, wholesale prices remained inflated,
Quote:
Originally Posted by chirack
Europe was also in desperate need of food as the war had ravaged farms, the US farms produced a lot of the food that kept Britain able to fight and produced the Food which allowed Western Europe to get back on it's feet. During the war Britian bought arms from the US(the Spritfire for instance is produced both in the US and Britain).
btw -The product Europe received was subpar also.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chirack
Basically WWII reduced the number of men vieing for jobs driving wages up
Wages were fairly stagnant and subject to price controls. How could wages go up much when the workers were worse? Remember Income tax went up too and people were working longer hours.
Hours worked also rose during the War, with average weekly hours for production and nonsupervisory workers rising from 38.1 in 1940 to a high of 45.2 in 1944. After the War, hours worked declined to 39.1 in 1949, slightly above the average for 1940.
Tons of labor disputes too which included work stoppages. June of 1943 War Labor Disputes Act didn't do that much
Year... work stoppages... days of idleness in the 1000's
1943 3,752 13,500
1944 4,956 8,720
1945 4,750 38,000
1946 4,985 116,000
Quote:
Originally Posted by chirack
as well as Increased savings as people couldn't waste money on non essential products (which helped drive the financial industry) and probaly helped with the transition.
Non essential products like food? Powdered eggs and powdered milk for instance????
I have yet to see a company that gets rid of a decent percentage of their best workers, replace them with sub par workers, and then that company became successful.
You got most of the history right, but you've come to a bunch of wrong conclusions.
After the war the price fixing and wage control went away. Quality products became available and their prices came down. Those are the reasons for the good economic times after ww2.
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