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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Skeeter Bug who wrote (110343)	12/30/2007 4:43:28 PM
From: Freedom Fighter	Respond to of 132070

skeeter, The country was formed in 1776. The Federal Reserve was formed in 1913 in an effort to socialize the risks of banking. The Fed caused the depression in one of two ways depending on your point of view - either it was way too loose in the 20s or way too tight after the crash (IMO it was too loose in the 20s). Hoover was president and presided of an expansion of government interference in free markets after the crash of 1929 trying to cope with it's aftermath and IMO extended the problems and created new ones. Roosevelt was elected in 1932, expanded government significantly to cope with the depression, and confiscated private gold in 1933. The IMF was created in 1945 to stabilize currencies and reconstruct our international financial system. (socialize it further) Johnson expanded government further via the Great Society in the 1960s. Nixon severed the international gold standard in 1971 and basically put the world on the paper money standard because our IOUs were draining our gold thus making it even more unstable. Alan Greenspan was made head of the Fed in 1987. He decided we could print our way to prosperity and never experience a recession as long as deflationary forces resulting from the collapse of the Soviet Union and the expansion of capitalism around the world kept consumer prices relatively flat. As a result we got rolling bubbles and busts, banking problems, bailouts, massive wealth transfer, and a massive current account deficit. Those are some of the major highlights of how we got into this mess. Obviously there were others, but I am focusing on the major expansions of government as a % of GDP and monetary issues. The economic record of annualized GDP growth, annualized inflation, etc... prior to the creation of the Fed in 1913 and after it was created is available widely on the internet. The % of GDP made up by government at all levels at various times before and after that time is also available widely.