Foot Schleppen

by JMZ

If I could kill one piece of political rhetoric that continues to get spouted as biblical truth, it would be that FDR’s “New Deal” is a heroic bill of genius that pulled us out of the deep cascade that was the Great Depression.

I hear it time and time again. The economic crisis we have now has ensured that FDR name has become the great cattle call.

However, like the Bubonic Plague, this festering notion has begun spreading across the globe causing great ills in foreign markets.

The FDR myth reared its ugly head recently in Australia.

The newly elected Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd deemed the dawn of “Reagan type capitalism dead, and that we as a world were wiser to follow the policy of  FDR, who according to Rudd rebuilt “American capitalism after the Depression”.

There is only one problem with you basking in the glow of praising FDR Mr. Rudd.

The New Deal did not work.

It was a miserable failure.

In fact it made things worse.

A lot worse.

Mr. Rudd you don’t believe me, well lets look at the facts.

Ah the facts, as President John Adams said are stubborn things, Mr. Rudd, but lets look at them anyway.

When the New Deal policies began unemployment was at an awful 25%. The economy was in taters and the economic confidence was at an all time low.  Quickly Congress gave FDR cart blanch to improve the tide and he went to work with a cross the board workers and spending programs in an effort to boost the confidence and garner the American People jobs.

No expense was spared as FDR went to war against the depression.

Only it was the depression that was winning.

Though unemployment dipped to 16% (like 16% is anything to celebrate. The world right now is in a panic and unemployment has yet to hit double figures) in 1936, the rate jumped back up to 19% by 1938 during FDR second New Deal and continued to stay high in 1939, at 17.3%.

Wait a minute,  the second three year period saw things getting worse?

That’s right worse!

Are you kidding?

Does that sound like a policy of success?

Is this the type of policy Prime Minister Rudd and President Obama wish to bring upon the world? (Why do I hear crickets chirping all of a sudden?)

Though FDR war against the depression was a total failure it was not until he declared war on Hitler and Japan did the economy turn around.

Again facts are stubborn things. With all hands on deck to fight of the enemy of freedom, unemployment was at all time low during World War II.  Everyone who wanted a job got a job during the War as the American people spilled sweat and blood to defeat the enemy of freedom.

But this economic success continued well after the war was over in what is now referred to as the Baby Boom period. During the 1950s the technological advances and the joy of freedom (wink, wink) spurred the rise of birthrates.

With more babies came more purchases. More purchases meant business could put on more workers, and even expand. Then expansion lend to more companies, and the wonderful capitalist cycle continued, without the need for government intervention. This success continued in the ’60s, until the late 1970s.

I know it sounds simple when I put it like that,  but leaders around the world keep wanting to do it differently, and I shake my head and ask why?

Why does Rudd herald FDR and not Reagan? All Reagan’s policies did was allow prosperity to have a chance.

Having to deal with high oil prices, higher unemployment, the Nation had not seen since 1939 and high inflation (thank you President Jimmy Carter) President Reagan cut taxes on business and workers in 1982. The result were a staggering success and the U.S enjoyed low unemployed rates for the last six years of his Presidency.
Even more impressive was that Reagan’s policies were continued under the Newt Gingrich’s Congress and President Bush, which ensured 20 more years of economic success.

The bottom line is Prime Minister Rudd is foolish, if not point blank distorting the facts in discussing the supposed greatness of FDR economic polices.

(And if they wish to learn anything from FDR is perhaps how to run a nation during war time. I have no doubt FDR would agree with Gitmo, or do I have to remind everyone of the Japanese’s detention camps).

Some might claim FDR did not go far enough and that is why the depressed malise continued for six years. Again more revisionist history. For confirmation one only has to look at what happened in Japan in the 1990s. After their housing and economic crash Japan attempted to graft there way out with the FDR model. That too was a ten year disaster that was slowed with the US economic success earlier this decade.

So lets cut out the nonsense.

Leaders like Rudd and Obama have a need to step in and blame capitalism to get what they want. The scapegoat will be Capitalism. It is not that Reagan form of capitalism died, rather it are leadership in the form of Kevin Rudd and Barrack Obama that want to kill it. Perhaps it is less to do with improving the worlds situation, and more to do with control. THe more control you can have the more influence your leadership will bring. And when things do begin to turn around, the more praise you will get.

Though Reagan’s Presidency ended just over twnety years ago, his economic pocies are unfairily clouded in some circles. And though FDR’s economic policies were a complete failure the liberal media and political circles still tout his effort as an agent of change.

As a result their hero will be FDR.

Seventy years of misinformation has built the legend poltical rhetoric can unfortunately stand on.