We have been told that we are in the middle of the greatest economic disaster since The Great Depression. So with that premise, perhaps we should look back at that time period, and the era before it, for insight.
This is a subject that has been written about, at some depth, for the last several years. There are generally two narratives; the first is that the “Roaring 20’s were a time of excess, Coolidge gave a greater tax cut “to the rich,” (sound familiar?) and Hoover “did nothing” until FDR had to clean up the mess. The Second narrative is that Harding, despite his corruption, restarted the economy, Coolidge cut taxes for everyone and the 20’s are an era to be emulated.
The first narrative is certainly in dispute. Hoover did more than nothing. However, most of what he did was detrimental. One little mentioned thing that Hoover did was put in a moratorium on immigration. When unemployment is over 20% percent, closing the borders sounds good, right? Here is the problem; this was a time when many Europeans were fleeing the oncoming Fascist storm. Many of them were innovators, investors, wealthy capitalists and saw the flaw in a growing State. In 1929-1930 those people would have been pretty helpful. Closed borders are also an exercise in a flawed zero-sum economic view, in that more people equals more mouths to feed. Another thing that Hoover did was implement new taxes on several sectors, not to mention the 38% Marginal Tax Rate increase. Add to those elements, large “works programs,” managed at the State level and the Smoot Tariff, a levy on nearly all imported goods. Now “nothing” is not an adequate description for Hoover’s four years.
Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites
