Read This
by digby
… if you need a primer on the Great Depression.
From Hale Stewart:
This article is the first in a series on the Great Depression. I am writing this with the help of New Deal Democrat (who blogs over at Economic Populist). The purpose of this series is simply to talk about the Great Depression. The reason for writing this article is the emergence of the “FDR made the Depression worse” talking point from the Right Wing Noise Machine — econ division. While none of the stories using this line have any facts to back them up — no charts, no graphs no data — they continue to spew this talking point. So, let’s get some data — as in facts — to see that actually happened.
If you or anyone you know has trouble understanding why the government should intervene to prevent what could be seen as a natural economic even, that article will dispel any confusion. The scope of human suffering is horrible and the instability that something like that engenders is very dangerous. They government is the only institution capable of doing what needs to be done to mitigate these effects.
And lest we think that the wingnuts have learned anything at all from history, this bit is especially instructive:
And one thing the Republicans and the plutocrats of the day were sure of, was that government should do absolutely nothing to help its destitute citizenry. When in 1930 a long summer drought killed cattle and crops in the southwest, Hoover asked Congress to appropriate money for government loans to enable farmers to buy seed, fertilizer, and cattle feed. But when Democratic senators sough to apply the same program to human beings in addition to livestock, Hoover “reaffirmed his unwavering opposition to such proposals.” (Schlesinger, p. 170)
Hoover appointed Walter S. Gifford, president of AT&T, to the “President’s Organization on Unemployment Relief.” Appearing before a Senate committee,“Gifford disclosed imerturbably that he did not know how many people were idle, that he did not know how many were receiving aid, that he did not know that the standards of assistance were in the various states, that he did not know how much money had been raised in his own campaign, that he knew nothing of the ability of local communities to raise relief funds ,, that he did not consider most of this information as of much importance to his job….
But on one question Gifford was clear: he was against federal aid.”…that it would reduce the size of private charity.” His “sober and considered judgment” was that “federal aid would be a ‘disservice’ to the jobless.”
Perhaps someone sent that quote to Mark Sanford.
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