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Oh, indeed we learned, but the lessons have obviously been forgotten.
So the question is, what part of GDP don't you understand, is it the gross, the domestic or the product part that gives you so much trouble?
Rather then normalizing for current dollars or 2000 dollars it is better to normalize to period dollars (say 1933 dollars) so that we get the full historical context. The reality is in period terms GDP went up 50% in FDR's first year. That's over 10% annual GDP growth even after adjusting for inflation. The New Deal was one of the greatest successes in American history so if someone says it wasn't then you KNOW you are dealing with an idiot.
I just can't see how this new "New Deal " will ever work. The people in this country will never work as hard as our Grandparents had to during the Depression. Could you see 6000 guys lining up to work like the photo linked. File:CWA 6000 men.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
How for example do they intend to find Qualified lineman to build all the transmission line needed. You can't find guys to that work now. and it takes 1 -2 years to become an Apprentice lineman. What about the government regulations that slow down projects? Permits. etc. It takes years to build a bridge if you follow the rules in place today.....
I don't see any indication that today's Americans aren't willing to work hard if there is work to be done. The biggest danger isn't that Americans won't work hard, the biggest danger is that the GOP succeeds in sabotaging the stimulus plan by filling it up with garbage. Tax cuts don't stimulate anything. If you want steel workers to go back to work then you need to buy steel and the same goes for any other factory job.
Build roads and bridges and suddenly there is a huge demand for steel and concrete, for engineers, for heavy equipment makers, and for construction workers. Give a millionaire another tax break and he'll just squirrel it away in an off shore account. Build schools and suddenly people in the lumber industry have jobs, the bricklayers have jobs, the welders & pipe fitters have jobs, plus our kids end up going to brand new schools instead of old ones which are falling down. Have the government replace those old gas guzzlers in it's fleet with new modern fuel efficient cars and suddenly auto factories in the US have massive new orders so they rehire lots of people to build cars while steel mills rev up production to meet the new demand and there is no need to bailout auto companies because they're already working 24/7.
There are a million ways to stimulate the economy but it all comes down to spending. If you spend the money on real things then jobs are created but if we keep repeating the failed Republican policies of the past (I.E. yet more tax cuts for millionaires) then all we'll do is worsen the deficit without stimulating anything. Republicans have gone out of their way not only to obstruct the stimulus bill but also to sabotage it by deliberately watering it down, removing the real stimulus, and replacing it with tax cuts for millionaires which has never stimulated anything.
Oh, and WRT your last paragraph. You are totally wrong. You can become an apprentice in a day but it takes 2 years to become a journeyman. Please learn what you are talking about.
If we REALLY want to emulate FDR's solution to the Depression, we're going to have to provoke Japan into attacking Pearl Harbor again.
Somehow, I don't see that happening. Especially since Hawaii is more a prefecture than a state, anyway.
Except the US economy had already returned to the 1929 high water mark by 1937. That's two years before the WW2 started in Europe and four years before the attack on Pearl Harbor. How could WW2 have "got us out of the depression" if the US economy in 1937 was larger then the US economy in 1929? Come on, dude, stop repeating Republican talking points and use your brain just a little.
I've already linked to a copy of the graph which shows inflation adjusted GDP of the US. Just look at it before running your mouth and you won't look so foolish.
Like so many things, it's difficult to draw clear cut conclusions from limited data, and statistics can be readly manipulated. I have been looking for a GDP chart from 1900-present to see how the growth during the ND compared with other times, with no luck. Best I came up with was this one of employement from '20-40. It would appear that the growth rate (slope of the graph) during the ND is about the same as during the period from 1920-1923. It took from '33-37 for total employement to return to the level of '29. In short a massive increase of government spending approximated a growth rate seen "naturally" just a decade or so earlier.
Last edited by Toyman at Jewel Lake; 02-10-2009 at 05:08 PM..
If we REALLY want to emulate FDR's solution to the Depression, we're going to have to provoke Japan into attacking Pearl Harbor again.
Somehow, I don't see that happening. Especially since Hawaii is more a prefecture than a state, anyway.
WW-II was simply a second phase of big government spending. To put that in perspective, 37% of the GDP was spent on war in 1943.
The first phase helped, phase 1.5 (when FDR decided to balance the budget) taught us a lesson, and phase 2 (WWII) helped finish it all off. What we ended up having as a result of the spending, that began in 1933 was... a prosperous America, AKA "middle class America" circa 1940, that promoted small business. And lasted until about 1980 when we fell in love with big corporations and credit cards.
I'd also like to point out that the 1938 recession was because Republicans won seats in the Congress and demanded spending cuts. Imagine that, they cut the New Deal and we went back into recession. In 1939 the New Deal spending was restored along with some added military spending and suddenly the economy started sky rocketing again. That's proof positive that spending really is stimulus.
No, we're just going to have to THINK BIGGER than FDR did.
It was the government SPENDING of WW II that put the final nail in the coffin of the Depression - not the FIGHTING.
Ken
The difference between between WWII and ND is efficiency. When war started, we knew exactly what to spend the money on. No debating over who gets what. Politics was pretty much not an issue in WWII spending. Apply this to Obamas stimulus and you have everyone arguing and money going every which way. No focus on actually stimulating the economy.
Yep, clearly the post tulip mania economic policies have been a failure.
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