The "obama" of the 1930s .........

[Libsmasher]

.......... Joseph P. Kenndedy. From wiki:

In 1938, Roosevelt appointed Kennedy as the United States Ambassador to the Court of St. James's (Britain). Kennedy's Irish and Catholic status did not bother the British; indeed he hugely enjoyed his leadership position in London society, which stood in stark contrast to his outsider status in Boston. His daughter Kathleen married the heir to the Duke of Devonshire, the head of one of England's grandest aristocratic families. Kennedy rejected the warnings of Winston Churchill that compromise with Nazi Germany was impossible; instead he supported Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement in order to stave off a second world war that would be a more horrible "armageddon" than the first. Throughout 1938, as the Nazi persecution of Jews intensified, Kennedy attempted to obtain an audience with Adolf Hitler.[7] Shortly before the Nazi aerial bombing of British cities began in September 1940, Kennedy sought a personal meeting with Hitler, again without State Department approval, "to bring about a better understanding between the United States and Germany."[8]

Kennedy argued strongly against giving aid to Britain.

"Democracy is finished in England. It may be here," stated Ambassador Kennedy, Boston Sunday Globe of November 10, 1940. In that one simple statement, Joe Kennedy ruined any future chances of becoming US president, effectively committing political suicide. While bombs fell daily on England, Nazi troops occupied Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France, Ambassador Kennedy unambiguously and repeatedly stated his belief that the war was not about saving democracy from National Socialism (Nazism) or Fascism. In the now-infamous, long, rambling interview with two newspaper journalists, Louis M. Lyons of the Boston Globe and Ralph Coghlan of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Kennedy opined:

"It's all a question of what we do with the next six months. The whole reason for aiding England is to give us time." ... "As long as she is in there, we have time to prepare. It isn't that [Britain is] fighting for democracy. That's the bunk. She's fighting for self-preservation, just as we will if it comes to us... I know more about the European situation than anybody else, and it's up to me to see that the country gets it,"[9]

In British government circles during the Blitz, Ambassador Kennedy was widely disparaged as a defeatist and also known as a coward. He became known as Jittery Joe for his propensity to run for cover to an air raid shelter located near Windsor at the slightest sign of an air raid.

When the American public and Roosevelt Administration officials read his quotes on democracy being "finished", and his belief that the Battle of Britain wasn't about "fighting for democracy," all of it being just "bunk", they realized that Ambassador Kennedy could not be trusted to represent the United States. In the face of national public outcry, he was offered the chance to fall on his sword, and he submitted his resignation later that month.

 

[top gun]

Well the fact is George Bush is reminiscent of President Hoover (look it up just a terrible administration) and John McSame wants to be exactly like him.

So knowing for sure what we have NOW is absolute disaster growing worse by the day... I'm for the positive change of an Obama administration!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vZOtJhfwrY

 

[Libsmasher]

Well the fact is George Bush is reminiscent of President Hoover (look it up just a terrible administration) and John McSame wants to be exactly like him.

So knowing for sure what we have NOW is absolute disaster growing worse by the day... I'm for the positive change of an Obama administration!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vZOtJhfwrY

One could patiently explain the causes of the Great Depression to you, even using only one and two syllable words, but one realizes a priori that would be like reciting shakespeare to a tree stump. That being the case, I'll just leave you with a hint: Hoover had nothing to do with it.

 

[top gun]

One could patiently explain the causes of the Great Depression to you, even using only one and two syllable words, but one realizes a priori that would be like reciting shakespeare to a tree stump. That being the case, I'll just leave you with a hint: Hoover had nothing to do with it.

As eloquent in Shakespeare as I'm sure you are ... I'm suggesting a little less drama and a little more book learnin'. ... because this sure does look a lot like a Republican Bush/McBush administration approach and our ever evolving worsening situation of today.

Great Depression and Herbert Hoover, 1929-33

In 1929, 60% of all families had annual incomes of $2,000 or less; 42% had annual incomes of less than $1,500. More efficient machines had made it possible for the productivity of industrial workers to increase by 32% during the 1920s, but their wages had increased only 10%. Profits from the industrial corporations grew 62% and went largely to the wealthiest 5%.

The economy was in trouble but people, dazzled by a surging stock market, ignored it. The consumer economy was slowing as incomes skewed to the rich. In 1929, the richest 10% of families received 39% of disposal personal income while the bottom 10% only got 2%.

People seemed to be forgetting that capitalism needs to expand, that demand for housing, clothes, automobiles, stoves, and many other consumer goods generates demand in other sectors of the economy. The wealthy bought luxuries but could not buy enough to sustain the consumer economy.

Many of the wealthy, as well as others, joined the speculative stock market sending stock prices to greater and greater without regard to company performance; In October, 1929, the bubble burst. The crash meant the tremendous loss of capital as prices declined $74 billion from 1929 to 1932 and the repatriation of much of US investment abroad. The Germany economy collapsed followed by the British and french economies. Germany could not pay the reparations it owed to the victors of WWI or make debt payments to US lenders, setting off a chain reaction. (read that Iraqi occupation $12,000,000,000 per month deficit spending)

President Herbert Hoover did not know how to meet this crisis. His government began buying farm surpluses in order to prop up prices but it did not buy enough to make a difference.

As historians Peter N. Carroll and David W. Noble note, Hoover feared that the collapse of the large corporations would bring down the entire US capitalist system. After all, one percent of the banks held 50% of banking assets. Three corporations—Ford, Chrysler, General Motors—manufactured 85% of the automobiles sold in the US. Chain stores dominated retail sales and their difficulties had national repercussions.

Business and industry met the crisis as they had always done—they cut production, lowered wages, reduced working hours, and fired workers.

The Hoover administration would not argue for direct relief to the unemployed and starving because he feared that doing so would corrupt them. Although he had administered relief progress in Europe after the First World War, he saw that as only an emergency measure caused by war. He believed that doing a similar thing in the the US would become a permanent practice. To many, he was callous. As people lost their homes and created shanty towns, they derisively called the "Hoovervilles." Hoover argued that private charities and state and local governments should be the institutions to provide relief. But they were suffering as well and could not deal with a problem of this magnitude.

Hoover and the Republicans saw aid to corporations as being different. Whereas they believed that helping the individual citizen weather the Depression would corrupt him or her, aiding corporations and other business was different. To many, it appeared that the Republicans were only interested in the rich. The newly-created Reconstruction Finance Corporation aided only the large corporations.

Hoover believed that the depression was part of the normal business cycle and had been caused by international factors and not US ones. to him, "prosperity was just around the corner." The best thing for the country to do would be to wait the crisis out.

 

[Libsmasher]

None of the above blabberfest identifies ANY cause of the Great Depression, much less any blame for Hoover.

 

[BigRob]

Didn't the Smoot-Haley Trariff Act have alot to do with it as well? We placed tariffs on international trade to try to "help" American business and then other countries responded the same way and trade pretty much dried up.

 

[Libsmasher]

Didn't the Smoot-Haley Trariff Act have alot to do with it as well? We placed tariffs on international trade to try to "help" American business and then other countries responded the same way and trade pretty much dried up.

That was the last (BIG) nail in the coffin. The main cause was the reckless expansion of credit by the new Federal Reserve in the years leading up to the depression. Every liberal dunce in the country blames the depression on "unregulated capitalism", whereas the actual causes were government interference in the market.