The Great Humanitarian: Herbert Hoover, Republican.

[resident_evil]

and

 

[resident_evil]

America is a great place with great people. Herbert Hoover being one of greatest sons.

 

[resident_evil]

Herbert Hoover set the ground work for many of Roosevelts programs that the Keysnesian laud.

Libertarian economist Murray Rothbard argues that Hoover was actually the initiator of what came to be the New Deal. Hoover engaged in many unprecedented public works programs, including an increase in the Federal Buildings program of over $400 million and the establishment of the Division of Public Construction to spur public works planning. Hoover himself granted more subsidies to ship construction through the Federal Shipping Board and asked for a further $175 million appropriation for public works; this was followed in July 1930 with the expenditure of a giant $915 million public works program, including a Hoover Dam on the Colorado River.[104][105] In the spring of 1930, Hoover acquired from Congress an added $100 million to continue the Federal Farm Board lending and purchasing policies. At the end of 1929, the FFB established a national wool cooperative-the National Wool Marketing Corporation (NWMC) made up of 30 state associations. The Board also established an allied National Wool Credit Corporation to handle finances. A total of $31.5 million in loans for wool were made by the FFB, of which $12.5 million were permanently lost; these massive agricultural subsidies were a precedent for the later Agricultural Adjustment Act.[106][107] Hoover also advocated strong labor regulation law, including the enactment of the Bacon-Davis Act, requiring a maximum eight-hour day on construction of public buildings and the payment of at least the "prevailing wage" in the locality, as well as the Norris-LaGuardia Act in 1932. In the Banking sector, Hoover passed The Federal Home Loan Bank Act in July, 1932, establishing 12 district banks ruled by a Federal Home Loan Bank Board in a manner similar to the Federal Reserve System. $125 million capital was subscribed by the Treasury and this was subsequently shifted to the RFC. Hoover was also instrumental in passing the Glass-Steagall Act of 1932, allowing for prime rediscounting at the Federal Reserve, allowing further inflation of credit and bank reserves.[108]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Hoover

 

[Lukey]

Yep! He was a big government economic interventionist from the Bush wing of the Republican Party. We wouldn't have had the Great Depression without him. In fact we could have had the first great depression in 1920 if Harding and Coolidge hadn't rejected his interventionist advice. Instead we don't even think of it as a serious economic downturn.

http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2010/09/22/1920_the_great_depression_that_wasnt_98679.html

 

[resident_evil]

Yep! He was a big government economic interventionist from the Bush wing of the Republican Party. We wouldn't have had the Great Depression without him. In fact we could have had the first great depression in 1920 if Harding and Coolidge hadn't rejected his interventionist advice. Instead we don't even think of it as a serious economic downturn.

http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2010/09/22/1920_the_great_depression_that_wasnt_98679.html

At first he didn't do anything hoping the economy would jump start itself like 1920.

In 1920 banks going under caused great pain. People, old people, lost life savings and had to start over again (My great-grandfather being one). Undoubtedly some died miserably. Glass Steagall, FDIC and other moves dampened the pain of cyclical boom and busts. We should have an amendment though that fixes debt to gdp at a floating 50-60%.

Our entitlement programs and debt can only fixed by massive increases in productivity w/o the use of human labor (i.e. AI machines) and increased medical knowledge (a walk in closet in every home that scans you every day head to toe). Only on those terms can we drastically reduce our national debt.

 

[Lukey]

At first he didn't do anything hoping the economy would jump start itself like 1920.

In 1920 banks going under caused great pain. People, old people, lost life savings and had to start over again (My great-grandfather being one). Undoubtedly some died miserably. Glass Steagall, FDIC and other moves dampened the pain of cyclical boom and busts. We should have an amendment though that fixes debt to gdp at a floating 50-60%.

Our entitlement programs and debt can only fixed by massive increases in productivity w/o the use of human labor (i.e. AI machines) and increased medical knowledge (a walk in closet in every home that scans you every day head to toe). Only on those terms can we drastically reduce our national debt.

That is simply inaccurate! He advocated for interventions in 1920 as Harding's commerce secretary. And he was an interventionist from the first day in office:

Politicians and pundits portray Herbert Hoover as a defender of laissez faire governance whose dogmatic commitment to small government led him to stand by and do nothing while the economy collapsed in the wake of the stock market crash in 1929. In fact, Hoover had long been a critic of laissez faire. As president, he doubled federal spending in real terms in four years. He also used government to prop up wages, restricted immigration, signed the Smoot-Hawley tariff, raised taxes, and created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation—all interventionist measures and not laissez faire. Unlike many Democrats today, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s advisers knew that Hoover had started the New Deal. One of them wrote, “When we all burst into Washington … we found every essential idea [of the New Deal] enacted in the 100-day Congress in the Hoover administration itself.”

http://www.cato.org/publications/briefing-paper/herbert-hoover-father-new-deal

Glass Steagall was necessitated by the government guarantee on bank deposits. And in that it was regulatory "friction" in the economy, it did more harm than good. Why is it the responsibility of non savers to bail out the savers who don't take precautions with their savings? It's like hurricane insurance run by the government - why is it my responsibility in PA to bail out people who choose to live on the beach? It's the same (socialist) principle.