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Politics : Idea Of The Day -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Les H who wrote (28405)	8/25/1999 2:08:00 PM
From: MeDroogies	Respond to of 50167

Credit bubble was tremendous. The droughts weren't as much of a problem, stockpiles of food were in good shape. The issue there was that it impoverished the smaller farmers (shades of the early '80's and the industrialization of farming). Protectionist policy wasn't in place until the flight of gold...and that made the problems even worse, as well. The "public assistance" guidelines you mentioned were actually BS issues that people like Galbraith seemed to think could've played a role in PREVENTING the problem. That, of course, is sheer nonsense. Crashes can, and do, occur with regularity in countries that have these things in place. In most cases, they exacerbate the problem. The US bounced back from its many Depressions without that kind of public assistance prior to the '30s. There is no reason why it couldn't have then. The issue, however, was that Roosevelt wanted an activist Presidency, so he politicized the problem. As such (to paraphrase Nixon) "we're all Keynesians now" (except me). Not that Keynes didn't have some interesting ideas. But Schumpeter spent far more time analyzing the problems of cycles and devised some far more unique solutions. Keynes was a "quick fix" addict who has made us all think that "in the long run - we're dead". This short sighted thought and action hampers us to this day. BTW, unemployment today is officially below 6%, but it is over 15% when you count in people who have "dropped out of the workforce". So nothing has really changed all that much.