We should definitely think about the New Deal when walking over the Chorro Street bridge and anytime a “representative” is talking about creating jobs. Chris McGuinness and Gary Brechin (“Old New Deal,” Nov. 9) fail to mention that while F.D.R.’s Works Progress Administration (WPA) had men build projects, it also gave rise to the new term at the time, “boondoggle.” In Kentucky alone, WPA workers catalogued 350 different ways to cook spinach, according to “Great Myths of the Great Depression” (Lawrence W. Reed, Mackinac Center For Public Policy). Hundreds of “workers” were used to collect campaign money for Democrat candidates. Also, by 1941, only 59 percent of the WPA budget went to paying the workers.
Chris and Gary need to realize that progressives like F.D.R. praised the fascist planned economy, dreaming of the day when the business cycle would be eliminated. F.D.R.’s unparalleled number of executive orders and alphabet agencies stifled the economy so badly it caused a second depression by 1938. Yes, this elitist, centrally planned economic interventionism is exactly why we have corporatism today.
Programs like the WPA absolutely benefited some, but if left to itself, the economy would have recovered much faster—like the depression of 1921, which had some prices drop faster and farther than the Great Depression, yet recovered within a year and a half.
When you walk over the Chorro Street bridge, you should think of all the unintended negative results from F.D.R. trying to manipulate the capital structure and how agencies like the WPA made the depression the longest in U.S. history.
Greg Larson
San Luis Obispo
This article appears in Nov 16-26, 2017.
I’m sorry to have to say that the letter writer, Greg Larson, appears to be another victim of Heritage Foundation/ alt-right/Russian propaganda aimed at brain-washing and dividing and weakening our nation by misrepresenting history in ways that benefit the rich and powerful and the expense of the common man. The continual dishonest attacks on “New Deal” concepts and FDR are one example. Larson may mean well, perhaps, but he is acting as a pawn and a sucker as he tries to further spread propaganda on behalf of those who have no respect for the U.S. Constitution and common decency.
over 3000 executive orders and confiscating peoples property is not constitutional
-Greg
i would strongly recommend reading “America’s Great Depression” by Murray Rothbard and “The Forgotten Depression: 1921 the crash that cured itself” by James Grant
I would also recommend “The Roosevelt Myth” and “As We Go Marching” by John T. Flynn, “Forty Centuries of Wage and Price Controls” by Scheuttinger & Butler, “Age of Inflation” by Hans Senholz, and “Human Action” by Ludwig von Mises.
The pdfs are free online.
-Greg
The ancestors of the National Socialists(Nazi) economic model, J.G. Fichte, J.K. Rodbertus, and F. Lassalle were fathers of socialism(progressive economic model). Socialist intellectuals J. Plenge, W. Sombart, and P. Lensch praised the collectivist WW1 economy and provided the leading ideas for the German Youth Movement between the wars, and for the masters of National Socialism, O. Spengler, A. Moeller van den Bruck, and F. Zimmermann, to fuse socialism with nationalism using militarism.
Greg Larson is a prime example of modern propaganda victim, willing to accept foolishness that appeals to his own selfish interests. Anyone who is so foolish as to believe that the outdated and irrelevant and crackpot economic fallacies perpetuated by the lemmings who mindlessly follow (and typically misinterpret) the writings of Ludwig von Mises is not to be taken seriously. VonMIses’ ideas promote selfishness and inequality and help the rich get richer at the expense of all others. Anytime anyone tries to push Von Mise “theory” on you, you know they are either propaganda victims or are trying to make victims of others. VonMise is the kind of crackpot that people who praise the other major crackpot Ayn Rand look to for meaning and direction in their empty, spiritually bankrupt lives.
The propaganda campaign that is aiming to smear FDR is really aimed at destroying the power of the labor movement in the U.S. and elsewhere. The aim is to perpetuate unfair treatment of labor and helping the very richest people get richer on the backs of the common man. You’ll find guys like Greg Larson who quote all kinds of books without having the critical thinking to realize their fallacies. Basically, they don’t know what they are talking about, but by quoting books they don’t understand, they feel smart, educated and empowered despite objective evidence to the contrary.
i would strongly recommend reading “America’s Great Depression” by Murray Rothbard and “The Forgotten Depression: 1921 the crash that cured itself” by James Grant
F.D.R.(and Hoover)/ progressive/ Keynesian policies (of promoting monetary inflation)then, and up to today especially, reveal the Cantillon effect – In short, the early receivers of the new money will increase spending according to their preferences, raising prices in these goods at the expense of a lower standard of living among the late receivers of the new money or among those on fixed incomes who don’t receive the new money at all. Furthermore, relative prices will be changed in the course of the general price rise, because the increased spending is “directed more or less to certain kinds of products or merchandise according to the idea of those who acquire the money, [and] market prices will rise more for certain things than for others.” Moreover, the overall price rise will not necessarily be proportionate to the increase in the supply of money. Specifically, because those who receive new money will scarcely do so in the same proportion as their previous cash balances, their demands, and hence prices, will not all rise to the same degree. Thus, “in England the price of Meat might be tripled while the price of Corn rises no more than a fourth.” Cantillon summed up his insight splendidly, while hinting at the important truth that economic laws are qualitative but not quantitative.
This is also why the effects of inflation are not even and cannot be measured properly using the C.P.I. metric.
If the newly created money/credit is used for investment in concrete capital goods with low liquidity it can reach the real economy. If it is however, invested in highly liquid assets (stocks for example), the new funds are merely “parked” and do not enter the economy properly. The more inflationary the policy, the greater the premium for holding purely financial assets. If real interest rates trend toward zero, the prices of financial assets seemingly rise toward infinite heights. “Parking” of money now not only does not involve a cost, one even earns a premium. So, more and more areas become monetary “parking spaces”. This is the paradox of why we have a global trend toward recession, yet certain assets are in bubbles.
The killing of the middle class.
http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html
– Greg
Sure, Greg. Some of the THEORY you quote sounds reasonable, but the problem is trying to apply that to the problems of TODAY and being willing to accept the devilish consequences of what you speak. If the answer was so easy, we would not be having this problem. There are some big losers when you apply your way of thinking to the real problems we face today. Spout all the economic theory you want, but that will never in a million years get the job done in making our world a better place.
You can’t base the value and well-being of humanity and the world on strictly economic terms. THAT is the big problem. The solution is NOT economic in the ways you think.We don’t want hoarding, we don’t want all the money accumulating to just a few. But the change has to come at the spiritual level and greater adherence to the Golden Rule. Sorry, that doesn’t sound quick or easy as the proscriptions by long dead and mostly irrelevant authors or the survival of the finest Ayn Rand types who will end up this life as miserable as Ayn Rand did. Apply compassion. When love flows freely, money flows freely. It might be hard for you to believe, but its primarily a matter of faith.
Basic FACT about FDRs New Deal: It gave immediate relief to millions of hungry, homeless, and jobless Americans. There were consequence of the New Deal, but many consider the trade offs all worth while, considering the number of lives saved. However, at the time and still today, there are many who were content to let massive numbers of people suffer and die in order that another portion of Americans could become wealthy beyond their imagination and consume, consume, consume, regardless of fairness or consequences to the environment.
Why are so many FDR critics today so willing to let people around the world suffer and die needlessly so that the more privileged and fortunate can get richer still? FDR’s plan was one of compassion and common sense and any negative consequences are more that fault of individual greed and lack of compassion for others.
Take the time someday to read the books/ links.
See what the progressives were saying about the fascists, particularly Mussolini in the 1920’s
The crackpot Mises was able to correctly foresee the fall of the German Mark, and the 1929 crash.
So…
Actually when money flows freely strife diminishes greatly. You have it backwards. Voluntary exchange is the only way scarce resources find there highest valued use. Not by coercion, from private or government means.
The intervention of capital free flow with government and private business cronyism(corporatism), and the monetary system of constant inflation, which in America were both made dominant from the progressives (right and left) has made the separation between big losers and big winners far greater than the free market. (see links if reading isn’t an option)
So applying that today would involve letting the market, which is you and me and everyone making individual economic decisions based on individual time preferences and experiences, determine interest rates. Then stop the FED and commercial banks from fractional reserve banking, or if they do and have a run they go bankrupt. Letting all citizens keep 100% of what they earn and direct as much or little funds as they see fit to any government or private agency as they want. Give power back to the people and stop promoting envy warfare. Yes, the global bubbles created from monetary inflation would collapse (which they will anyway), the faster the capital structure can go back to savings and production instead of debt and consumption the better. That transition would only be slowed by intervention in the name of “stability”.
As far as basing the well being of humanity on economic terms. Obviously you have to give something of yourself, your brawn, your brain, to make the necessary things available to live. The energy you put out to make the necessary things is part of you; it is you. Therefore, when you cause these things to exist, your title to yourself, your labor, is extended to these things. You have a right to them simply because you have a right to life. That is the moral basis of the right of property(income). Freedom of disposition is the substance of property(income) rights.
If whatever you produce is taken by somebody else, and though a good part of it is returned to you, in the way of sustenance, medical care, housing, yet under the law you cannot dispose of your output, you become a SLAVE.
It is silly, then, to prate human rights being superior to property/income rights, because the right to ownership is traceable to the right to life, which is certainly inherent in the human being. Property rights are in fact human rights, something marxists/fascists/progressives don’t want to accept.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFDe5kUUyT0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWk6AXQnh4s
But you still offer no satisfactory solution. Suggesting there be no taxes whatsoever and that contributions to government be voluntary will not work at this point in our evolution. And what about people who are unable to work or create value? We let them die on the streets in a “survival of the fittest” scenario? For one thing, who pays to dispose of the piles of corpses?
Your solution is no solution at all. Just a pipe dream that gives others excuses to be selfish and attack the government. What specifically do you recommend beyond theorizing? How do you make it happen?
And do you honestly believe you are a SLAVE? Seriously? Isn’t that hyperbole?
So what do you want people to do if they want to back you on your theories? Stop paying taxes? Dissolve the government? Dissolve the military, police departments, fire departments, highway building, social security? Start all over and never mind the consequences and cost in lives and suffering?
In your “system” what stops the powerful from exploiting the weak, stealing from them, enslaving them and whatever else, since the poor and weak would likely not have the means to employ police and military or otherwise fortify their positions and protect their possessions and loved ones? What about highways? Who builds them and maintains them? What about the oceans? Who gets to use them and who gets to decide? Who would be entitled to the natural resources, including sources of water? Who controls the waterways in the United States? And what about prisons? Who funds those? Or do people simply get to kill those who transgress and leave the bodies to the vultures?
VonMise is simply not practical and is most often used today to justify selfishness and misanthropy. Sorry, while I think you are sincere and well-meaning, you’ve not thought things through based on what is in front of us at the moment and how we get from point A to point B in an acceptable, humane manner.
I’m glad you are passionate. Watch the you tube links (above), and read the books someday. Not everybody wants to hoard and exploit, and you know to allocate your resources better than me. Best to you.
“…the passion for equality made vain the hope for freedom.”
all free:
https://mises.org/system/tdf/The%20Roosevelt%20Myth_2.pdf?file=1&type=document
https://mises.org/system/tdf/Americas%20Great%20Depression_3.pdf?file=1&type=document
https://mises.org/system/tdf/As%20We%20Go%20Marching_2.pdf?file=1&type=document
http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html
https://fee.org/media/14951/thelaw.pdf
http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/wew/articles/09/GreatMythsOfTheGreatDepression.pdf
https://mises.org/system/tdf/Liberalism%20In%20the%20Classical%20Tradition_3.pdf?file=1&type=document
http://www.sagaciousnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/The-Creature-from-Jekyll-Island-by-G.-Edward-Griffin.pdf
…”the earthly city was created by self-love reaching the point of contempt for God,…. the lust for domination lords it over its princes as over the nations it subjugates;….justice being taken away, then, what are kingdoms but great robberies? For what are robberies themselves, but little kingdoms? The band itself is made up of men; it is ruled by the authority of a prince, it is knit together by the pact of the confederacy; the booty is divided by the law agreed on. If, by the admittance of abandoned men, this evil increases to such a degree that it holds places, fixes abodes, takes possession of cities, and subdues peoples, it assumes the more plainly the name of a kingdom, because the reality is now manifestly conferred on it, not by the removal of covetousness, but by the addition of impunity. Indeed, that was an apt and true reply which was given to Alexander the Great by a pirate who had been seized. For when that king had asked the man what he meant by keeping hostile possession of the sea, he answered with bold pride, What thou meanest by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, whilst thou who dost it with a great fleet art styled emperor…..the State, then, is a result of sin and an expression of sin. Like sickness, death and all the tribulations of this world, it is an outcome or product of the Fall. More strictly, it is a result of the change wrought in human nature and on the human will by the Fall. The State is not, as it had been for Plato and Aristotle, a natural part of human life or a natural forum for the development and expression of the human character and potential. It is an unnatural supervention upon the created order”…..
-Saint Augustine
“Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security but [also] at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth. Those to whom the system brings windfalls, beyond their deserts and even beyond their expectations or desires, become “profiteers,” who are the object of the hatred of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished, not less than of the proletariat. As the inflation proceeds, all permanent relations between debtors and creditors, which form the ultimate foundation of capitalism, become so utterly disordered as to be almost meaningless; and the process of wealth-getting degenerates into a gamble and a lottery. Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.
– Lord Keynes
So, what exactly are you suggesting be done?
Do you not believe in community and cooperation for the common good?
You don’t answer pertinent questions., i.e., who disposes of the corpses? How are the poor and disabled protected and helped in a comprehensive manner?
Your quotes from St. Augustine are moot. The United States is not intended to be a “kingdom”. Our Constitution aims to make sure of that. St. Augustine had not imagined a nation founded on the principles and ideals that are at the foundation of the United States of America.
The United States governmental system is a good one, the primary flaw being that dishonesty and cheating are prevalent and tolerated. We accept the myth that lying is necessary in our culture.
Other than telling the people of the world to read more economics texts, what specifically are you recommending? Dissolution of your government? Ending all forms of taxation? If that happened tomorrow where would that leave us? (Especially the poor and the weak).
Can you come up with anything practical and of common sense? Highways, police, fire, military…what do you do?
This is not the same world the St. Augustine or Lord Keynes lived in. The United States should not be following the tactics and aims of Alexander the Great.
Greg, you’ve created an entire construct in your mind, that to you seems to represent reality and your views tend to reflect what you have created in your mind. But in your construct, you have not taken into account the reality of a changing, miraculous world in which there will be entirely new ways of dealing with problems, ways that you will not be able to imagine if you maintain such a rigid view of what you consider reality.
Your postings, with all due respect, are evidence of the failures of economic theory. But, ironically, it also gives you the opportunity to feel righteous when you point to problems and say “I told you so”. But the problem is that your solutions are not solutions at all. They are all “shoulda, woulda, coulda…”. Because if you theories would really pan out, they would have already. They didn’t. They are an illusion that you have bought into. Following your path all you will encounter is failure and at the end of you life all that you will have is the empty and false satisfaction in saying to yourself or others “Well, if they had only listened to me or vonMises”. But you will have failed nonetheless and wasted so much of your life on false hopes that will lead to nowhere. Sorry.
Next thing you’ll e telling us, Greg, is that every civilization with a fiat currency has eventually failed. Well, the truth is that every civilization, no matter their currency, will eventually crumble. Nothing of our world is permanent. Never has been and never will be.
All you are doing is setting yourself up to be able to say “I told you so” on your death bed. But that is because you have believed the illusion. Solutions will instead come from the heart, not your books or your mind. Until you understand that, you will he just another “I told you so” failed economist.
Oh, yeah, Greg, another question you have continually failed to answer: Do you truly consider yourself a “slave”, being the you suggest your system inherently enslaves. So, either you are a slave, or you have figured out some way to avoid being enslaved by an enslaving system. IN which case, please tell us how you have managed to remain free despite living in this system. And if it is possible for you to not be a slave, is it not possible for others to have the same freedom?