FDR's Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression
Author: Jim Powell
List Price: $27.50
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ISBN: 0761501657
Publisher: Crown Forum (23 September, 2003)
Sales Rank: 7,523
Average Customer Rating: 3.47 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 5 out of 5
FDR's New Deal=Socialistic Garbage
Jim Powell has written an excellent, easy to understand, explanation of why FDR's New Deal economic policies of the 1930's and 1940's did much more harm than good. One does not need a degree in economics to comprehend Mr. Powell's delineation of why FDR's excruciatingly high personal and business taxes, anti-competitive business regulations, price supports, restrictive domestic and international trade policies did the economy, already in the midst of a depression, even more detriment. Oh yes, Herbert Hoover does not get off the hook entirely. He too increased taxes and signed into law the infamous Smoot-Hawley international tariff bill. However, FDR did not represent change from Hoover's mistakes. He, in essence, followed the same policies as Hoover, but only much more severely. In addition, FDR's economic advisors were a motly crew of pompous neosocialists, who thought only they knew what was good for the economy even though the vast majority of them were never themselves businessmen. Even if you do not agree with Jim Powell's conclusions, though the evidence is quite incontrovertible, I highly recommend that you read this book. Mr. Powell does what a good writer should. He makes you think.
Rating: 5 out of 5
FDR Did Not Know Anything About Economics
Academia has spent a lot of time and energy trying to revise the actual performance of FDR's New Deal risky scheme. Liberals tend to elevate those who have not succeeded. Witness the glorification of Jimmy Carter who presided over a terrible period in our nation's history, both foreign and domestic. Now, at last, a book that showcases FDR's policies as the myth that they were. This book demonstrates that FDR knew very little, if anything, about macroeconomic principles that even a first-year sophomore would know. For instance, FDR created a monster-sized bureacracy we all know as Social Security. But as this book demonstrates, there was no need to create a one-size-fits-all bureacracy when many volunteer, profit-oriented, and therefore, private companies were available to do the same thing. Individuals could, of course, buy disability insurance on their own. But that would stop FDR from buying votes.
FDR also had totaltarian impulses. He distrusted the private sector and lambasted monopolies, even though he was creating governmental, and therefore, oppressive monopolies that would be impossible to overturn. (For instance, Social Security and the Tennessee Valley Authority are still with us 70 years later). He increased taxes dramatically, and yet he was upset with private business owners for not hiring more workers. It is not surprising: simple economics would say in that oppressive environment investors and businessmen would create a cost-benefit analysis to consider whether it would be wortwhhile to risk principle to earn further profits. If you hear constant criticism of the private enterprise system, increased calls for tax hikes, and oppressive regulations, you would have no choice but to slow down business or quit, completely. Certainly expanding one's business would be out of the question. Yet academics today--who truly are unable to imagine themselves in a cost-benefit analysis business world--still continue to triumph FDR as some sort of political genius.
He isn't. And it's time we think of him as the economic crackpot that he truly was.
Michael Gordon
Rating: 3 out of 5
There is a better book
Discusses how FDR's new deal policies extended the dpression and hindered recovery. This is true, and reflects the results of modern research, but there is another recent book that covers the same ground a lot better: Rethinking the Great Depression by Smiley. Similar Products
Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One
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