Obama plans to charge wounded military members for health care.

[Flame Of Liberty]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

Well, my numbers didn't come from Lew Rockwell, I'll tell you that much. Rockwell, in case you're interested, has a B.A. in English from Tufts University and exactly zero credentials in economics.

BS.

I wrote:

Numbers lifted from this book:

John T. Flynn, The Roosevelt Myth
50th anniversary edition, with a new introduction by Ralph Raico
San Francisco: Fox & Wilkes, 1998

Feel free to check his bibliography...

...and someone else has said the unemployment rate in 1939 was the same as when FDR took the office...who was it again? Oh yeah, his Secretary of treasury...

[Flame Of Liberty]

Another source points out higher unemployment rate, this time UCLA:

Unemployment persisted. By 1939 the U.S. unemployment rate was 17.2 percent, down somewhat from its 1933 peak of 24.9 percent but still remarkably high.

But more importantly, it talks about why FDR prolonged the depression. They say by 7 years:

Two UCLA economists say they have figured out why the Great Depression dragged on for almost 15 years, and they blame a suspect previously thought to be beyond reproach: President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

After scrutinizing Roosevelt's record for four years, Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian conclude in a new study that New Deal policies signed into law 71 years ago thwarted economic recovery for seven long years.

In an article in the August issue of the Journal of Political Economy, Ohanian and Cole blame specific anti-competition and pro-labor measures that Roosevelt promoted and signed into law June 16, 1933.

"President Roosevelt believed that excessive competition was responsible for the Depression by reducing prices and wages, and by extension reducing employment and demand for goods and services," said Cole, also a UCLA professor of economics. "So he came up with a recovery package that would be unimaginable today, allowing businesses in every industry to collude without the threat of antitrust prosecution and workers to demand salaries about 25 percent above where they ought to have been, given market forces. The economy was poised for a beautiful recovery, but that recovery was stalled by these misguided policies."

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla...sion-5409.aspx

[Azure]

I'm not really sure what this thread should be called anymore.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by Flame Of Liberty

Another source points out higher unemployment rate, this time UCLA:

Unemployment persisted. By 1939 the U.S. unemployment rate was 17.2 percent, down somewhat from its 1933 peak of 24.9 percent but still remarkably high.

But more importantly, it talks about why FDR prolonged the depression. They say by 7 years:

Two UCLA economists say they have figured out why the Great Depression dragged on for almost 15 years, and they blame a suspect previously thought to be beyond reproach: President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

After scrutinizing Roosevelt's record for four years, Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian conclude in a new study that New Deal policies signed into law 71 years ago thwarted economic recovery for seven long years.

In an article in the August issue of the Journal of Political Economy, Ohanian and Cole blame specific anti-competition and pro-labor measures that Roosevelt promoted and signed into law June 16, 1933.

"President Roosevelt believed that excessive competition was responsible for the Depression by reducing prices and wages, and by extension reducing employment and demand for goods and services," said Cole, also a UCLA professor of economics. "So he came up with a recovery package that would be unimaginable today, allowing businesses in every industry to collude without the threat of antitrust prosecution and workers to demand salaries about 25 percent above where they ought to have been, given market forces. The economy was poised for a beautiful recovery, but that recovery was stalled by these misguided policies."

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla...sion-5409.aspx

Dude. Stop gaming the numbers. You can't take the numbers from the end of the Hoover recession and compare them to the numbers during the worst year of the second Roosevelt recession and claim that the stuff in between never happened.

You're going to hurt something with that over-reaching there. In any case, the discussion is pointless. Your first claim was that my numbers didn't mean what I thought they did. Now you accept that they do, but claim that they're "wrong." Well, fine. I gave you the source. Explain to me why books by Libertarian ideologues not trained in economics have better numbers than the Journal of Economic History. Or why it's okay to ignore the six years of recovery before the second recession, which most people agree was caused by FDR dialing back too much on New Deal programs.

I mean, come on: the entire argument you've summarized above goes like this: there was a recovery--but we think that the recovery would have been better if the New Deal hadn't happened. At best, it's conjecture. At worst, it's nonsense. I vote for the second.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by Azure

I'm not really sure what this thread should be called anymore.

Yeah, we've ranged pretty far off topic--particularly since the one thing we would all agree on is that Obama is nothing like FDR.

[Flame Of Liberty]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

Dude. Stop gaming the numbers. You can't take the numbers from the end of the Hoover recession and compare them to the numbers during the worst year of the second Roosevelt recession and claim that the stuff in between never happened.

You're going to hurt something with that over-reaching there. In any case, the discussion is pointless. Your first claim was that my numbers didn't mean what I thought they did. Now you accept that they do, but claim that they're "wrong."

Umm no, I did not accept that. I pointed out that your numbers were far too rosy and untrue*. In that case, you would be pressed to come up with a new scheme explaining how exactly did FDR help the economy.

You hide behind the numbers* but you did not touch this point - real effects of new deal policies.

I wonder why is that? Care to explain how "allowing businesses in every industry to collude without the threat of antitrust prosecution and workers to demand salaries about 25 percent above where they ought to have been, given market forces" helped to speed up the recovery?


*I found this in Encyclopedia Brittanica, entry The great depression: Althought there is some debate about the reliability of the statistics, it is widely agreed that the unemployment rate exceeded 20% at its highest points. Therefore I think it's fair to say that neither you nor I are able to dig out "true numbers," given the historians are unable to do so.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by Flame Of Liberty

Umm no, I did not accept that. I pointed out that your numbers were far too rosy and untrue*. In that case, you would be pressed to come up with a new scheme explaining how exactly did FDR help the economy.

You hide behind the numbers* but you did not touch this point - real effects of new deal policies.

I wonder why is that? Care to explain how "allowing businesses in every industry to collude without the threat of antitrust prosecution and workers to demand salaries about 25 percent above where they ought to have been, given market forces" helped to speed up the recovery?


*I found this in Encyclopedia Brittanica, entry The great depression: Althought there is some debate about the reliability of the statistics, it is widely agreed that the unemployment rate exceeded 20% at its highest points. Therefore I think it's fair to say that neither you nor I are able to dig out "true numbers," given the historians are unable to do so.

Fine. You're right. The New Deal was a failure. As evidence, we can refer to the conjecture that the recovery would have been faster if it had not happened.

You say I "hide behind the numbers." I find facts to be a more comfortable hiding place than the baseless speculation and conjecture of Libertarian ideologues. Why don't we each stay in our hiding places--I like mine better.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Back ON topic--

here's Jon Stewart's take on the Obama policy. Let's just say... he doesn't like it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/0..._n_176410.html

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

Back ON topic--

here's Jon Stewart's take on the Obama policy. Let's just say... he doesn't like it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/0..._n_176410.html

Reading it doesn't do that clip justice.