Someone should have told President Reagan that the Smoot-Hawley Tariff was enacted over eight months after the Great Depression.
What does "enacted" mean in this context? By what you probably think is pure coincidence, the New York Times reported that the Senate was set to pass their version of Smoot-Hawley on October 28, 1929, the very day before the Great Crash.
That gigantic sucking sound heard in the market was, in large part, foreign "hot money" repatriating overseas.
Trade barriers help a few, and hurt many. We've seen it firsthand here on SI, on numerous occasions. Every time the US puts up a tariff, people from countries that are affected by the tariffs simply go berserk. Canadian softwood. Steel. Lambs, for heaven's sake. Ask Maurice Winn about lamb meat. I doubt he personally lost a penny over the lamb tariff, but it was the principle of the thing that matters.
BTW, the Great Depression began in August, 1929, and was not caused by the Great Crash, but it wasn't until fall, 1930, that people really felt it as anything more than a simple recession. But that's another story for another time. |
