>>After FDR was elected, he realized there was no way to immediately balance the budget.
...and so he further extended Hoover's foolish but modest attempt to plan the economy back to prosperity (which did not work) into a colossal state apparatus to plan the economy back to prosperity (which also didn't work).
Of course, the intentions were good, but as HL Mencken noted, "The New Deal began, like the Salvation Army, by promising to save humanity. It ended, again like the Salvation Army, by running flop-houses and disturbing the peace."
As you note, the economic trouble started on the farm. Although the US recovered from the postwar depression rapidly, agricultual prices again started dropping in 1925, the same year that Germany slipped into a depression. But the electrification of offices and factories, which happened in the 1920s as well, permitted production around the clock. With the rapid adoption of motion pictures, radio, the motorcar, and commercial air transport, it truly was a time of wonders. |
