The Fake History of the Depression

http://mises.org/story/3426 ^ | Robert P. Murphy

[Doogle]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENm44TufWuw

[STONEWALLS]

....anybody who wants to know how your grandparents lived during the Depression should read Frederick Lewis Allen’s “Only Yesterday”....it’s very readable and will give you a deeper appreciation of what your ancestors went thru.

[BenLurkin]

Interesting.

[RobRoy]

The wage freezes also gave us employer paid health care.

[ClearCase_guy]

Great book recommendation. I just re-read it. Well-written, with good insight on a very different time.

[ml/nj]

Previous discussion at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2234771/posts

ML/NJ

[all the best]

Thanks for posting.

[dimk]

So both Keynesians AND monetarists are wrong.. one has to actually offer some sort of thesis as to what happened before I fork over my $$ for a book like that.

Also from monetarist point of view what was learned is not that we need to expand the money supply but that it should not be let to shrink fast. Actually expanding it to stimulate things is a separate issue

[Skooz]

BFL

[diamond6]

Ping

[SoCal Pubbie]

I don't need to read a book. My parents told me. They were both born in 1915. I only know one of my grandparents, as the other three passed away before I was born.

[PLMerite]

bump

[BoneHead]

Interesting
Herbert Hoover was President Warren Harding's Commerce Secretary in the 1921 recession. I recall reading that Hoover didn't like Harding's handling of the '21 recession, even though it was over in 12-18 months. Hoover obviously thought he knew better, he extended his recession 2-3 years and lost his reelection bid and the recession became a depression. (with help from FDR)

Regards,
Bonehead

[big black dog]

Harding has been given a terribly undeserved reputation as an awful President.

[griswold3]

Are there any books available on how ‘Main Street’ businesses reacted to FDR’s policies?
There were many during the GD that went to jail because they did not follow the NRA guidelines as I understand, and resented greatly the government intervention. Then there were those who found they could profit with FRD’s policies.
But were the sentiments the same back then as now concerning business? As Ray Moley discovered in order to have economic ‘central planning’, you would need a police state. The rules were/are being so changed to punish the productive that many businesses withdrew and decided to wait them out. (Such as the ‘Capital Strike’ as FDR called it, leading to a ‘undistributed profits tax’)

Many small business owners such as myself are refusing to participate in ‘Obamanomics’.

[masadaman]

Harding was not only 'not an awful President', he was a cocksman of the first order dying in the saddle at San Francisco's Palace Hotel. Harding died from what we now call an aneurism and the newspapers kept the local gal out of the story, but she went on to claim some fame in her later years as a senior hostess working with Sausalito madam Sally Stanford.

BTW, best Depression book is Forgotten Man, by Amity Shlaes.

[STONEWALLS]

“Are there any books available on how ‘Main Street’ businesses reacted to FDR’s policies?”

....I don’t know except that Main Street was slow to react to the Crash of ‘29 because at first there was no noticable change across Anerica....the attitude was “so what if Wall Street crashed, Main Street is still OK”...then slowly thru 1930 and 1931 and half of 1932 things got worse and worse and worse....I think that’s where we are today....it’s a slow spiral down and down until a bottom is finally in.

......I appalaud your rejection of Obamanomics and wish you well.

[BruCru]

ping

[agrace]

I’ve had that book for over a decade, haven’t picked it up since I first read it. I think I’ll revisit it, thank you for the suggestion. And your post reminded me I still need to order The Forgotten Man and American Progressivism, so thanks for that too.