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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (576139)	7/13/2010 1:32:39 PM
From: bentway	Respond to of 1576112

Wrong. FDR's jobs programs reduced the Great Depression's unemployment rate from 25% to 13%. Then, he foolishly started attempting to reduce the deficit, responding to attacks from the (R) party and the unemployment rate remained stuck at 13% until WWII. Deja vu all over again. Then, the hyper war SPENDING did the rest.

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (576139)	7/14/2010 10:21:19 PM
From: SilentZ	1 Recommendation Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1576112

>Kind of hard to prove a negative, but it's even harder to prove that the TVA actually lifted America out of the Great Depression. There was only one thing that did that: World War II. Unemployment dropped significantly between the beginning of the WPA and 1937. When New Deal programs were scaled back in '37, unemployment rose again. Yes, WWII helped a lot, but it's undeniable that not only did Roosevelt's labor and economic policies help the jobs situation, they also made this country a much more livable place for hundreds of millions of Americans. -Z

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (576139)	7/18/2010 1:48:23 PM
From: combjelly	Respond to of 1576112

"In other words, if the TVA was never formed, what would have been different? " Lots of things. If nothing else, the economy there would have been much worse off. The electricity generated provides a lot of jobs because of the fertilizer companies, textile mills, aluminum manufacturing, etc. that it attracted. "The Great Depression would have lasted longer?" Possibly. It did create a lot of jobs that are still with us. "The American union would have dissolved?" Probably not. "People would have rioted in the streets?" Probably. That was already happening. The additional jobs likely headed off some, at least in that area. Why do I get the impression that your ideas of the Great Depression was formed by watching "The Waltons"?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (576139)	8/2/2010 9:57:34 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 1576112

Kind of hard to prove a negative, but it's even harder to prove that the TVA actually lifted America out of the Great Depression. There was only one thing that did that: World War II. I agree with you about the TVA, but not about WWII. If WWII worked (and by that I mean US federal government spending on the war effort, not the general situation with WWII causing a lot of indirect effects that impacted economic growth both positively and negatively)), than paying people money to dig holes and paying other people money to fill them back in should also work. Or if you need more complex manufactured items, maybe even just military items to "stimulate" the economy we could pay people to build tanks, and flying targets in huge numbers, and then pay them to build ammo that we use to destroy the tanks and targets, while drafting people to do the destruction. Part of the upturn leading in to WWII was the economic activity from selling weapons and material to those fighting the war. (No "broken windows" issues here since the money for those weapons, equipment, and supplies, at least initially, came from foreign tax payers, not pulled out of the American economy). During the war, with price controls, and rationing, the economic statistics are highly distorted. The war did have the benefit of removing some of the distortions and controls imposed in the 30s, but then you had these new controls imposed. But the time ended in 1945 if had been over a decade and a half since the crash. The passage of time itself is perhaps the biggest reason for the pullout from the depression. Economic slowdowns don't last forever. During that time individuals had paid down debt, and built up savings, that they used to buy consumer goods, that where largely unavailable during the war. Business shifted production from war goods to consumer goods to meet this demand.