A Chilling Uncertainty: The Lessons of Roosevelt's Experimentation

Washington Post ^ | December 31, 2008 | Amity Shlaes

[re_tail20]

The United States has entered the era of the experiment. President-elect Barack Obama is putting forward an infrastructure program whose plans and price tag are unclear. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson whipped up the Troubled Asset Relief Program to buy up bad mortgage instruments, and, expanding on that experiment, President Bush wants to try extending TARP to autoworkers.

The idea that experiments are warranted in current circumstances comes from the New Deal. The official history is familiar: FDR put forward multiple projects, some at cross-purposes. Yet New Deal inconsistency was not a problem and might have been a virtue. Through "bold, persistent experimentation," his catchphrase, Franklin Roosevelt brought recovery.

Modern economists, monetarist or Keynesian, have not rejected this story line. The trouble with the 1930s, in their view, is that government did not fiddle enough. Had the Federal Reserve, the Treasury or the White House fiddled more, the Depression might have been shorter or less severe. The New Deal Fed, they say, never got the price level quite right. Or, the New Deal stimulus programs were too little. And so on.

[WOBBLY BOB]

ping...just got her new book.

[mainepatsfan]

Highly recommend her book.

[norwaypinesavage]

"A Chilling Uncertainty: The Lessons of Roosevelt's Experimentation"The lessons are not at all uncertain: Roosevelts policies caused a "Great Depression". It was only bad before he meddled. It is he who made it "Great"

[expatpat]

Should be:

"Henry Paulson whipped up the troubled Asset Relief Program"

[Red Badger]

Through "bold, persistent experimentation," his catchphrase, Franklin Roosevelt brought recovery.

BS............

[gusopol3]

http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/FDR-s-Policies-Prolonged-Depression-5409.aspx

I don’t know why this research isn’t more quoted, even FDR’s theory that “excessive competition” had been to blame for the depression.

[catchem]

Why not extend TARP benefits to the Real Estate industry? We work our butts off for 25 years on straight commission building a business based on ethical principles, continuing education, and strong work ethic, then get plowed under through no fault of our own and end up with no business at all. Where’s our free handout?

Guess what; we’ll recover. And, it will not be from Govt. handouts. It will be fromo a determination to succeed. Unemployment benefits are not even available to a licensed Realtor.

[bassmaner]

In the middle of 'The Forgotten Man' now. Along with 'Atlas Shrugged', it should be required reading for every Econ 101 student today.

Instead, they get Marx ...

[Trunk 71-74]

Approximately 20% of the population supports the other 80%. This was true even during the Jamestown experiment, until the 20% quit their support and the whole thing collapsed. If the present 20% throws in the towel, it’s all over but the shouting.

[deannadurbin]

I read her book, and it isn’t totally conservative in nature. Anyone who could write the sentence “McCarthy was wrong”, who is a member of the CFR, is suspicious to me.