It's 1873 and the Great Depression All Over Again

December 22, 2008 RSS Feed Print

By Michael Barone, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

The model for our current economic crisis should be, economic historian Scott Reynolds Nelson writes, not the Great Crash of 1929 but the Great Depression of 1873. Read it, and see if you're not convinced. And thanks to Tyler Cowen, who linked to this on his Marginal Revolution blog. In another interesting post, Cowen argues that fiscal stimulus has never revived the macroeconomy, anywhere, anytime.

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history,
economy

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I find it humorous that idiots fear mongering about America becoming socialist! What a laugh! When the government gave out 700 billion dollars it was not to the poor or even middle-class workers but rather the elite- white collar criminals that have been running the banking industry, mortgage companies and wall-street corporations.

If the government was serious about fixing things from the ground up they would have taken that 700 billion and given a million dollars to each unemployed homeless middle-class worker and required that they 1)buy an American home, 2)buy an American manufactured vehicle, 3) start their own business in this country and employ only fellow americans who are out of work. This kind of stimulus would be much more effective "trickle up economics" not trickle down which only benefits the rich. The only thing we need fear in this country are the elitists or fascists that keep telling us, they know what's best for us. We should do what John Kennedy wanted to do which was return control of the money system to congress (Federal Reserve), and not allow private european bankers to continue to run this country into the ground. The people of America should control the money supply thru congress not privately owned bankers, Jefferson warned us that those that control the money supply can ruin this country and he was right. Kennedy JFK wanted and tried to do the right thing by the American people but he was assassinated by big money interests, now look where their attempts to destroy the dollar and this country have taken us.

edmund samph of CA 6:04PM June 12, 2010

I'm a Depression Kid. I recall deprivations & how we "made do." FDR used taxes to make jobs in the CCC and public works jobs. In my area, neighbors aided others in a socialistic, sharing way. FDR was called a "traitor to his economic class," the owning class. If the Depression continued, i believe we would have advanced to public ownership of public utilities, transport and other daily needs. But along came the war and we were back to the neck in profiteering capitalism. We should demand more public ownership of natural resources and reverse bad decisions made during the Robber Baron era. At that time, Congress sold to private owners all the things that became daily necessities and we pay profits plus cost of operating them. The world "socialism" scares some folks but it simply means "we the people" own things.

auradawn veirs of CA 11:24PM September 18, 2009

Yea like bushes policies, the poor also must pay for. That is the story of history as it was in 1871-1914. The comments sound anti-obama but if we think about the poor paying anyway, we realize that these benefits that are necessary to keep food on the tables of the working class will eventually have to be paid back by the people.

I see no reason for arguments about overspending when the people who benefit are the ones paying back the money anyway.

Our system will never be accurate in the sense of benefit to humanity until there is a system accepted where basic needs of people are at the forefront of demand and economic policies are a second concern of the people. Until this happens revolution is unavoidable.

skoob of OR 7:44PM July 07, 2009

Michael Barone

Michael Barone

U.S. News Weekly

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Michael Barone is a senior writer for U.S.News & World Report and principal coauthor of The Almanac of American Politics. He has written for many publications—including the Economist and the New York Times.

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