Rick
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jul 17, 2007
- Messages
- 1,844
What the summary from Rick demonstrates is that government spending does alleviate the effects of a depression. FDR's initial spending bills were insufficient to fully fix the problem. When government spending increased sufficiently, the US economy rebounded. However, it is important to realize that all of FDR's efforts alleviated suffering. Public works programs put money back into the economy. Those who worked on those programs got dollars to spend on necessities, so the money went directly into the private sector. Moving away from the gold standard made the economy have more ability to respond to the economic crisis.
The Austrian thinkers, as I recall, care little about unemployment. They do not see it as a real issue, the important issue is the accumulation of private property. IMO, this is an anti-human, anti-freedom POV. This is why the Reps ran on jobs, but have done nothing to address the jobs problem, instead dealing in endless "social" issues.
All you do is advertise your ignorance, but I must say it's at least slightly encouraging when you are able to move your rhetioric beyond the usual Koolaid Kid slogans. You're wrong about the Austrian school - none other than Friedrich Hayek himself supported government relief in extreme circumstances. That does not obviate the basic mechanisms of recovery: lower taxes, deregulate, get out of the way of business. In that regard, Keynsianism is exactly the WRONG policy, as has now been demonstrated into two huge experiments that had the american people as guinea pigs. And you have a reading problem - to look at my post and say it shows keynsianism succeeded is like reading a history of world war two and saying fascism succeeded.