Worst Presidents: Herbert Hoover (1929-1933)

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Thomas Jackson at the very bottom, I could not have said it better myself. America needs to understand how socialist Obama actually is. Socialist leaders "never" come into office when times are good. Look at the Castro situation. Look at all situations involving socialism. Obama is feeding off of the millions of Americans that have lost hope in the free market. Many people are miserable and misery loves company. Obama has become this company. If you feel broken there is no time like the present to pick yourself back up and build yourself back up. YOur country needs all of you to stop being so fing lazy and go to work. If you cannot get a job then maybe you were meant to be an entrepreneur. But good luck trying to create a business with Obama as the president.

Freddy James of CA 5:58AM May 12, 2012

Its pretty hard to blame the depression on this guy. the market crashed only shortly after he came to power. i dont know where the author gets this nonsense. the five worst presidents are hoover, lincoln, johnson, truman and probably carter, just in case there are any history students out there who prefer to hear a ture answer to this question of the worst presidents.

Mr. Furley of IL 9:33PM February 21, 2012

Read minervx's comments on Hoover below. They are dead-on. Congratulations, minervx, you did your homework!
Hoover likely worsened economic conditions, but the economy was actually teetering on the day he entered office.
Under his predecessor Calvin Coolidge, per-capita disposable income for almost all Americans was decreasing, the ongoing farm depression continued and the construction boom ended.
Hoover is in the White House for only three months when businesses, reacting to dramatically lower consumer demand, slash production 20 percent.
None of this registers with giddy Wall Street investors during the 16-month. 40 percent stock price explosion of 1928-29 until October '29. Everyone then simultaneously pulls capital away from corporations, and Hoover's looking at a potential national crisis.
The next year, Hoover at first denounces the proposed record-high Smoot-Hawley Tariff, but then buckles under pressure from his own party and signs it. One result is that both imports and exports eventually fall off the table, by as much as two-thirds.
Contracting the money supply is another bonehead move; when there's less money in circulation, businesses have more trouble getting loans.
Things get absolutely scary. Banks fail in unheard-of numbers and unemployment rockets to 25 percent.
Hoover is an enigmatic figure. He's not evil; far from it. He actually enters office as a great humanitarian, yet he gets blamed for causing so much human misery.
I really think Coolidge is equally to blame, as he ignored repeated warnings that the '20s boom had gone bust and tough times were at hand.
Coolidge had this laissez-faire policy to markets that gave tacit approval to the wild, fantasy-based Wall Street ride during his final year in office. He firmly believed that government should pay no role in steadying an economy descending into hell. Most presidents since then have at least taken some steps to prevent such disasters.

creamnsugar of FL 11:31PM August 21, 2011

Historians are currently jumping on recent former President Bush as the worst of all time. I am not about to defend him, but find the biased logic of a largely left-leaning group of academics revealing.
While a number of previous presidents can be classified as failures, it is ludicrous to lump people like Buchanan and Hoover, or even Bush, with Obama. The reason should be obvious. No previous President has had the capacity to do as much social and economic damage as has been done because of Obama's policies and politics. He has mortgaged our great-grandchildren's future on a medical insurance plan which has been widely rejected as unworkable and socialistic. He has spent trillions of our dollars on failed bailout programs which have exacerbated, rather than corrected the recent economic downturn. Unemployment has worsened dramatically during his term of office. He has continued our foreign adventures and the economic and human damage they bring.
He is also a chameleon. As a U.S. Senator, he once railed against runaway deficit spending. Yet, as President, he has more than doubled the deficit he inherited. Churchill once opined that "Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy; its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." Whether or not Obama would ever admit to being a socialist, his approach to "fixing" our economic engine reveal his true political nature.

Thomas Jackson of CA 10:13AM July 22, 2011

yes your right the stock market crash is one of (for purposes of simplification) the main cause of the depression.
people often forget that cause and effect are seldom cause and effect more often it is cause, cause/effect, cause/effect, cause/effect .... effect.
the main reason for the crash dispite numerous dispicable buisness practices and on the margin stock purchasing. if you read your text books, were the tariffs. At the end of the world war hoover and predisesors passed numerous tariffs against european goods.
remembering that europe was in a depression at the time much deeper than our own, there struggling economies and inability for foreign revennu made it extremely difficult to repay debts witch in turn lead to the destablization of our and there currency and economy witch lead to the callapse witch lead to the great depression.
now last time a checked logic 101 if A => B and B => c then A=>C so yah he was a contributing factor in the down turn

john of MD 3:59AM April 26, 2011

It was not Hoover that started the Depression, it wasn't his fault anyway!
He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time!
It was the stock market crash that was the problem!
If the RICH people had not pulled out all the time at the last minute this would have never happened, that's why it's against the law to do that now.

Cady of CA 4:59PM April 12, 2011

There are two horrendous historical errors here. First, Hoover didn't cut taxes after the onset of the Depression. He signed a bill from Congress which RAISED taxes in 1930. Secondly, Hoover was NOT a conservative. His economic policies foreshadowed those of FDR, except they weren't as broad or deep in scope as Roosevelt.
I approve Hoover's appearance on the worst list, mainly because he wasn't a conservative, but also for his handling of the Bonus Army affair in 1932. Several thousand WWI veterans converged on Washington in the summer of that year petitioning Congress to approve the early payment of their wartime service bonuses, which were not due to be paid until 1945. Hoover ordered the camps out of DC. Army Chief of Staff Douglas MacArthur had Majors Dwight Eisenhower and George Patton to carry out the orders. A massacre ensued, ending Hoover's hopes for re-election.

Allen Davis of IN 5:32PM January 14, 2011

To Bryl: One who doesn't know the difference between "your" and "You're" should be careful about calling someone else a moron. Your comments also apply to YOU! It's a shame though that you may have had a valid point to make.

makinamotze of PA 11:21AM December 28, 2010

catholic hitler what!!!!!!!! hitler was Atheist.he had plans to take out the vatican when the time was right, you moron.your obviously an Atheist who makes up lies to make reiligion look bad, the good thing is that when you lie you lose all credibility for your argument.either get a correct history lesson or quit lying.you are an absolute lying hate spewing pathetic loser,or a total moron

Bryl of WA 11:05AM October 08, 2010