Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:
Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of general interest.
Posted on 02/13/2011 9:05:00 AM PST by reaganaut1
Economists still argue about what caused the Great Depression of the 1930s and what got the nation out of it.
But 43% of Likely U.S. Voters think government policy mistakes converted a normal recession into an unprecedented Depression. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that just 26% disagree, and 31% are not sure.
The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of June 1930, signed by President Herbert Hoover, dramatically raised U.S. tariff rates and is often cited as a contributing cause of the Depression. Within a few years, world trade fell by more than 50%. The Federal Reserve also dramatically cut the monetary supply as the economy tumbled from its peak in 1929 to the trough in 1932.
Some have argued that the problems of the Great Depression were created by a lack of government spending. However, federal government spending actually increased by 50% during Herbert Hoover’s time in the White House from 1928 to 1932. Spending during the next four years, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first term in office, nearly doubled.
The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on February 4-5, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology. By a 55% to 16% margin, Mainstream voters believe it was government policies that caused the Depression. The Political Class, by a 49% to 15% margin, disagrees and says the government was not to blame.
Most Republicans (56%) and a plurality of unaffiliated voters (41%) believe that government policies created the Depression. Democrats are fairly evenly divided on the question.
Fifty-three percent (53%) of conservatives believe the government was to blame, while a modest plurality (39%) of liberals disagree.
(Excerpt) Read more at rasmussenreports.com ...
Why do we have to have polls to consign the truth?
why is Rasmussen polling on this? do likely voters have sufficient knowledge of the economic/political conditions of 80 years ago to form an educated opinion on the Depression? Do most people actually know what the Smoot-Hawley Tariff was, the acrimony both in Congress and internationally about it and why it threatened global trade? Or the accumulation of international debt due to the world war?
or do they understand that major worldwide economic events like the depression often are caused by a number of both related and unrelated circumstances that all come together at the same time?
I do not see any similarity. This is not like previous depressions and recessions.
Exactly: even the stock market had come back by 1930, but, of course, Hoover was no Reagan and he instituted a tax increase, a “check tax” on checking, and the worst, started the RFC which caused the banks to collapse.
This is a surprise. Maybe the varnish has worn off Roosevelt’s “good old days”?
...and understand that a move back to a tarriff based system would not occur in isolation. It would be ineffective unless combined with a massive decrease in the size and scope of federal government *and* a complete elimination of all personal and corporate income taxes in America.
Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:
Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of general interest.
The truth is finally getting through!
No, the cause was not lack of money, the cause was the Fed’s actions in the 20’s which created a ‘boom-bust’ situation.
The problem was that the Fed was still keeping prices levels stable when prices should have been falling due to increased production.
Thus inflation was still in the system and caused malinvestment and a 'boom' that resulted in the 'bust' of 1929.
Hoover's 'little new deal' only prolonged the agony and FDR never got us out of the Depression.
Our unemployment was 'solved' by WW2.
My bank didn't collapse because of a bank run. Did yours?
No mine is now Wells Fargo. Still in Biz.
That’s great news. If the Fed had allowed money supply to collapse, that may not have been the case.
Yes, But I keep most in mattress savings and loan just in case.
I think I have to agree with Pat with regard to Smoot-Hawley.
The market crashed in 1929 before Smoot-Hawley was passed in 1930. And the Federal Reserve tightening of the money supply, and non-action in letting the 1/3 of the banks fail instead of shoring them up, played a much bigger role than international trade.
In 1929, Imports were 4.2% of GNP and Exports were 5.0% of GNP. Exports fell by 70% following the Smoot-Hawley act. So it looks to me like the maximum impact of Smoot-Hawley on total GNP was 5.0% * 70% = 3.5% of GNP.
In the Federal Reserve's defense, since the Great Depression, they've not repeated the mistake and the depressions we had every 20 years in the 1800's while on the gold standard were not repeated in the 1900's, thanks to the Federal Reserve.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.