I'm sorry my recent blogs have been so historical, political, and let's face it; GLOOMY! But I cannot deny that these are the times of the country and the sad times of my life! Dark and Depressing Times! Sometimes just writing about them and getting it all off my chest, just makes me feel all the better! Anyway after watching Obama give his first Presidental News Conference tonight, I further grasped a realization of the terrible situation. 3.6 million jobs lost in the past 12 months, and still dropping! No crisis has ever been this bad since the Great Depression... So I've decided to take a detailed look back into our worse economic period of American history; The 1930s!!
Instead of giving historical facts on this one, I'm going to wing it, and describe my theory as to why things got so bad in the 1930s... it was due to the economic boom of the 1920s...The Roaring 20s, as they have come to be called, was a period of celebration following WW1. This not only lead to the introduction of Jazz music, but more importantly it began a period of new government policy... let me stress, New Economic Policy! During the Republican presidencies of Harding and
Coolidge they basically decided to cut taxes on the wealthy and to make business more private! It worked for several years, as corporations and companies began booming all over the country! Until finally these businesses got so big, that they were producing TOO MUCH! Here is the problem in brief; Over Production and Under Consumption... this lead to panic, which led to the Stock Market Crash of 1929!
The Stock Market Crash began a chain reaction of economic collapse. Companies and banks began to go bankrupt, because people were cutting their spending! This was all caused by a sudden fear and doubt in America's economic future... This eventually lead to what became the epitome of the Great Depression which was high unemployment, poverty, low profits, and bad living! The bulk of the Depression lasted through the early 1930s before FDR was elected. In 1933 FDR proposed his "NEW DEAL", the plan that would create jobs and save the economy!
I've always considered FDR as one of our greatest presidents... He was a progressive liberal-minded politician who wasn't afraid to implant radical solutions! He saved us from Depression, and got us through the world's worst war in human history! One of these days, I'm going to write him up a good tribute in my blog! But anyway, here is a brief outline of his New Deal policy! This one I did have to do some research on.
-Banking Reform Laws (It was the banks that got us into the mess... Just like today i might add)
-Emergency Relief Programs
-Work Relief Programs
-Agriculture Programs
-Industrial Reform
-The end of Prohibition (I don't know what I would do if alcohol was still illegal today)
-Labor Union Support
-Farm and Rural Programs
-Fair Labor Laws (Minimum wage and maximum hour laws)
I strongly believed that this program saved our country and brought the people a new sense of faith in it's government. Most Conservatives argue that it wasn't the New deal, but World War 2 that saved our economy... although part of this may be true, i think it is ignorant to assume that not doing anything would have fixed the issue. With millions of jobs being lost, something had to be done, and we couldn't sit around and wait for it to fix itself!
It has become an undeniable truth that this past situation has mirrored today's situation! We are in a serious crisis, the same as in the late 1920s, that is only going to get worse! FDR faced heavy Conservative opposition, yet still Congress worked with him. Yet in today's crisis, it seems like President Obama cannot get a break as these Conservatives simply do not want to cooperate! They believe the situation will take care of itself! So even though jobs are vanishing, they think we shouldn't worry about it! Give me a break guys! Your policies have not worked for the past 8 years, and your economic ideology is the problem! It lead to the Depression of the 30s, and could lead to the depression of the 2010s, if radical progressive solutions are not implanted!
Instead of giving historical facts on this one, I'm going to wing it, and describe my theory as to why things got so bad in the 1930s... it was due to the economic boom of the 1920s...The Roaring 20s, as they have come to be called, was a period of celebration following WW1. This not only lead to the introduction of Jazz music, but more importantly it began a period of new government policy... let me stress, New Economic Policy! During the Republican presidencies of Harding and
Coolidge they basically decided to cut taxes on the wealthy and to make business more private! It worked for several years, as corporations and companies began booming all over the country! Until finally these businesses got so big, that they were producing TOO MUCH! Here is the problem in brief; Over Production and Under Consumption... this lead to panic, which led to the Stock Market Crash of 1929!The Stock Market Crash began a chain reaction of economic collapse. Companies and banks began to go bankrupt, because people were cutting their spending! This was all caused by a sudden fear and doubt in America's economic future... This eventually lead to what became the epitome of the Great Depression which was high unemployment, poverty, low profits, and bad living! The bulk of the Depression lasted through the early 1930s before FDR was elected. In 1933 FDR proposed his "NEW DEAL", the plan that would create jobs and save the economy!
I've always considered FDR as one of our greatest presidents... He was a progressive liberal-minded politician who wasn't afraid to implant radical solutions! He saved us from Depression, and got us through the world's worst war in human history! One of these days, I'm going to write him up a good tribute in my blog! But anyway, here is a brief outline of his New Deal policy! This one I did have to do some research on.
-Banking Reform Laws (It was the banks that got us into the mess... Just like today i might add)
-Emergency Relief Programs
-Work Relief Programs
-Agriculture Programs
-Industrial Reform
-The end of Prohibition (I don't know what I would do if alcohol was still illegal today)
-Labor Union Support
-Farm and Rural Programs
-Fair Labor Laws (Minimum wage and maximum hour laws)
I strongly believed that this program saved our country and brought the people a new sense of faith in it's government. Most Conservatives argue that it wasn't the New deal, but World War 2 that saved our economy... although part of this may be true, i think it is ignorant to assume that not doing anything would have fixed the issue. With millions of jobs being lost, something had to be done, and we couldn't sit around and wait for it to fix itself!
It has become an undeniable truth that this past situation has mirrored today's situation! We are in a serious crisis, the same as in the late 1920s, that is only going to get worse! FDR faced heavy Conservative opposition, yet still Congress worked with him. Yet in today's crisis, it seems like President Obama cannot get a break as these Conservatives simply do not want to cooperate! They believe the situation will take care of itself! So even though jobs are vanishing, they think we shouldn't worry about it! Give me a break guys! Your policies have not worked for the past 8 years, and your economic ideology is the problem! It lead to the Depression of the 30s, and could lead to the depression of the 2010s, if radical progressive solutions are not implanted!
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