Franklin Roosevelt: The Great Depression
To rescue America from the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt attempted to steer the country on a new economic course. He called his plan the New Deal. Did it succeed, or did it make matters worse? Amity Shlaes, author of The Forgotten Man, explores this critical question.
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Script:
A great commander in chief abroad does not always make a great president at home.
That is the case when it comes to Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
In the 1940s, president Roosevelt led us to victory in world war II. That stunning achievement however obscures Roosevelt’s record in the 1930s. In the ‘30s, Roosevelt battled the great depression at home—and met defeat.
To understand how this happened, it helps to remember who Roosevelt was before he became president.
His passion was the sea. An experienced sailor, he knew every crack and cranny of the Atlantic coast. His first work in the federal government was as assistant secretary of the navy, where his mastery of the seas became evident to colleagues.
After serving as governor of New York, Roosevelt was elected president in 1932. The job confronting him was all land. America lay mired in the great depression. One in four was unemployed. Roosevelt made a promise: to put Americans back to work. He would help “the forgotten man,” the “man at the bottom of the economic pyramid.”
To rescue America, the new president decided to steer the country like a ship in a storm, with himself as captain.
Just as a commander calms a nervous crew, Roosevelt told Americans to forget their fear. The only thing to fear, he said was fear itself. Roosevelt also promised to re-rig the economy and run it tight as a ship.
Roosevelt called his re-rig the New Deal, and made its military aspect explicit: this was “a call to arms” he said. The depression was an emergency for which Roosevelt claimed broad executive power. The downturn should be treated like a “foreign foe.”
Perhaps because Roosevelt didn’t like economics very much, the captain recklessly steered the economy into uncharted waters. Roosevelt opted for a command-and-control philosophy, never before tried in peacetime. and he gave himself the broadest possible license—a license to pursue, as he put it, “bold, persistent experimentation.”
Roosevelt called for government to manage industry.
New laws ordered companies to raise prices and wages—even when they couldn’t afford to do so. He slammed individual businessmen. He called big corporations “enemies of peace.”
Roosevelt was a man born into wealth. He imagined that he and his senior crew, his brain trust, could run the economy better than entrepreneurs.
For example, the new national recovery administration decided everything down to how many logs a lumberyard could cut, and at what time—or how many chickens a butcher might sell.
But in the storm of the 1930s, few dared mutiny. Maybe this was the way economies were now supposed to work. That’s what Roosevelt’s “experts” said.
Roosevelt subsidized farmers and created temporary jobs in the arts; social work experienced a boom. He promised pensions to seniors. That sounded good. And the New Deal backed organized labor’s demands for much higher wages. The recovery was just around the next bend, Roosevelt promised. All Americans had to do was wait for it.
As the years passed, however, the recovery stayed away.
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FDR’s New Deal was influential and magnificent.
Yep, IMHO FDR was the worst POTUS in the history of the nation, the ill effects of his actions still resound today.
When a President is likeable and speaks well, people stand by their President (come hell or high water). It is only after that generation passes and we can look at history more objectively do we find the truth (without emotional attachment).
As the Boomers pass, I imagine we will discover that JFK was actually killed by "a silly little communist" and that his policies almost brought us to the brink of all out thermonuclear war. Also, we probably will find out that Nixon was not as bad as he was portrayed.
Maybe after my generation passes, America will realize that Obama failed in uniting the nation, and in the end was a marginal president at best. I think it will take a 100 years or so, for people to see how important Trump's policies were to the country. It took more than 200 years for John Adams to be praised as President for keeping us out of the "perpetual European conflict".
Finally, I am looking forward to witnessing the real history of Woodrow Wilson and his policies: He is the father of the Administrative State, the beginning of the professional ruling class. He was responsible for segregating the Federal Government and indirectly responsible for the political environment that led to the rise of totalitarian regimes. 60 million people died because of the world wars which, as time passes, historians will see as the same conflict with a period of armistice in the middle.
He wasn't even a great commander in chief abroad. He was a tyrant, rightly called so by Rose Wilder Lane.
An argument could be made that he wasn't great during WWII as a leader either. After all he was the Patty that allowed communism to spread and take over much of Europe. There were many people in the United States and in Europe that wanted to stand up to Stalin and prevent the spread of Communism.
Hmmm. I don't remember learning this at my public high school. I'm guessing the teachers union made sure not to include the criticism of FDR.
In Argentina have this economic model, and we lose our property, our prosperity and our libertys..
2:03 Roosevelt opted for a command and control philosophy never before tried in peacetime.
2:18 • called for government to manage industry
2:22 • ordered companies to raise prices and wages
5:22 Amity Schlade: "President Franklin Roosevelt himself put the GREAT in the Great Depression."
Don't teach History , and you will have a willing accomplice .
You forgot that Roosevelt also rewarded "Blacks" with his welfare programs in order to get Votes…
That's when blacks actually started Voting Democrat. It wasn't actually in the 60's as most believe, and the Democrats were still openly racist then, yet b's in majority started voting for them then. It's how the Left eventually got full control of b's. First with Welfare, massively increasing it even more in the 60's, then also in the 60's they realized they could LIE about the Right, i.e. Goldwater, falsely calling him racist, when he was actually non-racist, when LBJ was the actual racist. Those two things is how Democrats get votes, increasing handouts, and lying about the Right.
Bull Shit, a twist by Prager trying to rewrite history.
This is FASCISM
Prageru likes hovers and his hoverville
im not convinced he was a great leader abroad. or war time leader.
But he inspired generations of Americans to embrace entitlement, and for that, the Left is ever grateful.
In middle school, my history teacher said FDR got us out the Great Depression by having the government pay people to do work that didn't produce anything for the economy. Throughout the years, I've asked my teachers how useless work = no great depression, and none of my teachers have been able to give a coherrent explanation.
'The only way to fight inflation is to cut taxes.' -Milton Friedman
When you argue against the decisions and actions of someone, you should spend as much time making the case for the alternative that was supposedly missed. What, exactly, would have taken the 'Great' out of the 'Great Depression'? The real answer would be that the answer cannot be known. Any speculation of any alternative is just that – speculation – and could have just as likely led to a 'Greater Depression'. Of course, we are on the cusp of the next Great Depression, with opportunities to try something different, and only time will tell if something different will produce a different outcome.
What a lady turd! Going off on probably the most popular and best president ever! I guess we should go back to Donald J Turd and how he botched the Pandemic response