 Timely reading
Excellent book!Refutes the myth that the New Deal ended the Great Depression. Offers insight into what to do & what not to do regarding today's economic crisis. Well documented and very readable.
 Government Interference
Fascinating! An interesting lesson on activist governments, lost on today's pols and "journalists." Hoover and Roosevelt both believe that the government should DO something. And they did. Full of facts and too many names to track when listening while driving. I may have to buy the book just to pull out quotes.
Many "Ahahs!" to see where some of the misguided thinking of today developed 70 years ago.
Knowledge is Power
This is an excellent book. It looks at the depression from a different view, reminds one of what could happen today. It is best to deal with the here and now from a position of knowledge, I hope this doesn't happen today, but if it does this book will help you see it coming to prepare for it.
Excellent.
I thought a very interesting and well-written account. I recommend reading this along with "Freedom from Fear" by Kennedy as an alternate viewpoint.
The Always Recovering But Never Recovered Decade
Amity Shlaes has written an excellent book. She presents a balanced and mutually negative view of both a removed, mechanistic Hoover and a vindictive, manipulative Roosevelt. The author feels that the election of 1936 saw the creation of two things that have had disasterus results that have continued to today's America: the creation of Entitlements, and the Pressure Groups that have come to depend on them. Roosevelt deliberately planned the creation of these groups; to turn us from individuals into members of groups so as to be easily manipulated The author should have shown how the use of the new technologies; radio, propaganda art, movies were paralleled in other countries. Roosevelt relied upon young intellectuals who were often enamored with the Soviet Union and its idea of the collective not as an end of itself, but as a means of social change.
There was no "stock market bubble" in the 1920's. The high prices reflected real productive gains and the reasonable expectation of more through such developing technologies as electricity. The government adopted a tax policy that discouraged investment and growth. The government would take almost all of your gain, but you would bear most of the loss. The left and the right view economic downturns differently. To the left it is a permanent condition due to the shortfalls of the capitalist system that can only re remedied by government intervention. To the right, it is a temporary condition that the free market will eventually rectify. A key question is that of business profits. Should they become wages, or stay as capital to be turned into more jobs and productivity.
Her conclusions are supported by an extensive bibliography and explanatory notes.
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