NationStates Jolt Archive

http://www.econ.ucla.edu/whatsbruin/news/FDRarticle.htm

FDR Responsible for Prolonging - Not Ending - Great Depression, Say UCLA Researchers

1933 recovery package delayed upturn 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.

“Why the Great Depression lasted so long has always been a great mystery, and because we never really knew the reason, we have always worried whether we would have another 10- to 15-year economic slump,” said Ohanian, vice chair of UCLAs Department of Economics. “We found that a relapse isn’t likely unless lawmakers gum up a recovery with ill-conceived stimulus policies.”

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.”

Using data collected in 1929 by the Conference Board and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Cole and Ohanian were able to establish average wages and prices across a range of industries just prior to the Depression. By adjusting for annual increases in productivity, they were able to use the 1929 benchmark to figure out what prices and wages would have been during every year of the Depression had Roosevelt’s policies not gone into effect. They then compared those figures with actual prices and wages as reflected in the Conference Board data.

In the three years following the implementation of Roosevelt’s policies, wages in 11 key industries averaged 25 percent higher than they otherwise would have done, the economists calculate. But unemployment was also 25 percent higher than it should have been, given gains in productivity.

Meanwhile, prices across 19 industries averaged 23 percent above where they should have been, given the state of the economy. With goods and services that much harder for consumers to afford, demand stalled and the gross national product floundered at 27 percent below where it otherwise might have been.

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hoooray for history. FDR is proven to be a failure.....he was just there at the right time...had it not been for the war, we would have been in the depression several more years....undoubtably......

I prefer models.

You know....whenever there is a vaible criticism about a socialist or left leader (don;t deny that FDR was a socialist), noone approaches it. The people on these boards avoid it like the plague...

hoooray for history. FDR is proven to be a failure.....he was just there at the right time...had it not been for the war, we would have been in the depression several more years....undoubtably......


Saying he was "proven to be a failure" is WAY too strong and inclines readers to disagree with you. This seems to prove that one of FDR's initiatives failed (keeping in mind that the economic information and theory available to him at the time was far inferior to what is available to us today). That's all it does. Would it make sense if next time you mispelled something or tripped, I called you a failure at life?

You know....whenever there is a vaible criticism about a socialist or left leader (don;t deny that FDR was a socialist), noone approaches it. The people on these boards avoid it like the plague...

a) Whether FDR was a socialist depends on how you define socialism. Perhaps he was a socialist compared to YOU.

b) You answer your own question: this seems like a very "viable" criticism backed up by facts. There's no need for us to "approach it". It speaks for itself. Noone was avoiding it "like the plague" . . . there was just no need to comment. There would only be need to comment if there were evidence disagreeing with this study, which as far as I know there isn't.

Saying he was "proven to be a failure" is WAY too strong and inclines readers to disagree with you. This seems to prove that one of FDR's initiatives failed (keeping in mind that the economic information and theory available to him at the time was far inferior to what is available to us today). That's all it does. Would it make sense if next time you mispelled something or tripped, I called you a failure at life?

The thing is.....FDR's economic policies DEFINED him as a president up until WWII. That would make that portion of his presidency a failure.....and i don;t think that any wartime president should be praised unless they end a war without bloodshed or very little (if you consider the cold war a war, i would consider reagan to be a great president). Wartime presidents simple get popular becasue they were there at the right time. Or if they did terrible, they are noted for that. mediocre presidents are made to look like saviors while a country is at war.

You know....whenever there is a vaible criticism about a socialist or left leader (don;t deny that FDR was a socialist), noone approaches it. The people on these boards avoid it like the plague...
I'd join the argument, being a leftist, however US political history is not something I particularly care about or know a whole lot about. No offence. I just can't argue one way or the other on this.

I'm not directly attacking you kanabia when i say this...just want to make it clear.

I try to make it a point to know my history the best i can. Although it is an old cliche, those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it. I like to know what Neville Chaimberlain did to stop germany (nothing). I like to see where appeasement gets us (nowhere). so i can be prepared for what is happening when i see these trends again. we are entering a world where we have all the information of th epresent and past available at our fingertips, but the past is severly overlooked.

Ah, but could you hold a conversation with me, on say, Gough Whitlam's education policies, or John Curtin's nationalisation initiatives? ;)

I sincerely doubt it. And I am unashamed to admit that I possess a similar lack of knowledge as to the details of your political leaders. There's history, and there is history that is not relevant to you. (I know a *little* about the New Deal, but as I said, not enough to argue on)

Ah, but could you hold a conversation with me, on say, Gough Whitlam's education policies, or John Curtin's nationalisation initiatives? ;)

I sincerely doubt it. And I am unashamed to admit that I possess a similar lack of knowledge as to the details of your political leaders. There's history, and there is history that is not relevant to you. (I know a *little* about the New Deal, but as I said, not enough to argue on)

To reieterate my point i wasn;t merely aiming that at you...whayt you jsut said made me remember soem of the things i had wanted to post about in previous discouces that i jsut never got around to posting...i shoudl have clarifyed that a nation that doesn;t know it;s own history is doomed to fail.

To reieterate my point i wasn;t merely aiming that at you...whayt you jsut said made me remember soem of the things i had wanted to post about in previous discouces that i jsut never got around to posting...i shoudl have clarifyed that a nation that doesn;t know it;s own history is doomed to fail.

Alright then :)

The thing is.....FDR's economic policies DEFINED him as a president up until WWII. That would make that portion of his presidency a failure

If you read the entire original post and the article that it linked to, you'd notice that the study only refers to one particular initiative, NIRA, and has nothing to do with many of the other economic policies that DEFINED FDR's presidency, such as Social Security, the Agricultural Adjustment Act, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Civilian Conservation Corps , the Civil Works Administration , and the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, among others.

As you can plainly see, the NIRA referred to in the study was only one part of a large fleet of economic initiatives from FDR. Though the effect of these programs is debatable, the study in the original post does not prove that these programs were a failure, and thus the original post nor the study therein prove that FDR's economic policies overall were a failure. You were still overstating your case.



.....and i don;t think that any wartime president should be praised unless they end a war without bloodshed or very little
And it could be argued that FDR did a very good job helping our side win WW2 with minimal bloodshed. Sometimes it is impossible to end a war with "little or no bloodshed", so your criteria isn't very fair. Plus, your criteria would already make W. Bush a horrible president, since he's already lost over 1,500 of his own troops and caused immeasurable bloodshed to the other side, and I don't think it would be fair to call Bush a bad president just because of that.

And it could be argued that FDR did a very good job helping our side win WW2 with minimal bloodshed. Sometimes it is impossible to end a war with "little or no bloodshed", so your criteria isn't very fair. Plus, your criteria would already make W. Bush a horrible president, since he's already lost over 1,500 of his own troops and caused immeasurable bloodshed to the other side, and I don't think it would be fair to call Bush a bad president just because of that.

I still don;t think people really know how to put things into perspective in war. this is about 1500 of our soldiers and many liberal estimates put it at 15k iraqi deaths (the numebr is proabbly more around 7k) in 2 years. IMO that is alot less than it could have been. *i can just hear the circular reasoning coming from someone "It's alot more than it should have been." I'll disregaurd you*

Contemplate some of the battles of WW2, or even Vietnam. they dwarf the total loss of life that Operation Iraqi Freedom has had. I am not justifying war, or loss of life, just putting things into persective. My criteria wouldn;t make George Bush a horrible wartime president....jsut not an amazing one.

(if you consider the cold war a war, i would consider reagan to be a great president).Just a slight note. Reagan had nothing to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The flaws inherent in the Soviet political and economic model caused the collapse; however, if you wish to lay responsibility at one man's feet, lay it at Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachyov's.

In regards to the post, it's arguable that even if ALL of FDR's policies had slowed down recovery from the Depression, they are still overall a good thing. FDR's policies, and their legacy, has allowed the United States to harness the power of capitalism while lessening the impact of the business cycle. While immediate recovery might have been nice, I would suggest that we would simply have been in store for an even worse Depression after that, and another one after that, until finally something gave, without the "safety net."

My little whimper in the dark, if you will.

I still don;t think people really know how to put things into perspective in war. this is about 1500 of our soldiers and many liberal estimates put it at 15k iraqi deaths (the numebr is proabbly more around 7k) in 2 years. IMO that is alot less than it could have been........


You obviously haven't read The Lancet report that puts the number of Iraqi civilian casualties to AT LEAST 100k as of last October. The premier English medical journal performs the ONLY scientific measure of civilian casualties and you casually through out the stat of "around 7k." You gotta stop getting your info from Fox

Oh, and the US casualty figure only includes death from enemy fire while in combat, so dying of your wounds in the hospital gets excluded along with many other types of injuries.

So, your opinion of the cost of war needs to be revisitted at the very least.

You obviously haven't read The Lancet report that puts the number of Iraqi civilian casualties to AT LEAST 100k as of last October. The premier English medical journal performs the ONLY scientific measure of civilian casualties and you casually through out the stat of "around 7k." You gotta stop getting your info from Fox

Oh, and the US casualty figure only includes death from enemy fire while in combat, so dying of your wounds in the hospital gets excluded along with many other types of injuries.

So, your opinion of the cost of war needs to be revisitted at the very least.
IIRC, the figure of 100k was a central estimate, not a minimum. I could be wrong though.

IIRC, the figure of 100k was a central estimate, not a minimum. I could be wrong though.

Yes, a central estimate, using internationally recognized standards. Same as the CDC and Census Bureau use. I'm not sure if your post was an attempt to refute my argument or not.

Yes, a central estimate, using internationally recognized standards. Same as the CDC and Census Bureau use. I'm not sure if your post was an attempt to refute my argument or not.
Just minor pedantry. A central estimate shouldn't be described as 'at least' - that would imply a minimum estimate.

Just minor pedantry. A central estimate shouldn't be described as 'at least' - that would imply a minimum estimate.


Ah, pardon me. I get a little frustrated talking to some of the chickenhawks on this board.

Yes it's a central estimate made six months ago. Due to the ellapsed time I'm assuming that the central estimate has grown, hence the "AT LEAST."

I do tend to believe that discussion of the 'costs' is a bit of a red herring though. I think it's pretty elementary to say that war is wrong and must always be justified for it not to be regarded as a crime against humanity with it's prosecutors subject to War Crimes trials. Since every single one of the rationals that Bush and Co. used to justify the invasion and violent occupation of Iraq prior to the event have been proven definitively wrong I think the real discussion should be when are they going to be impeached, arrested and tried in a court of law?

When we argue about 'costs' the discussion inevitably turns to the tactics used in the invasion and detracts from the real issues.

Ah, pardon me. I get a little frustrated talking to some of the chickenhawks on this board.

Yes it's a central estimate made six months ago. Due to the ellapsed time I'm assuming that the central estimate has grown, hence the "AT LEAST."

I do tend to believe that discussion of the 'costs' is a bit of a red herring though. I think it's pretty elementary to say that war is wrong and must always be justified for it not to be regarded as a crime against humanity with it's prosecutors subject to War Crimes trials. Since every single one of the rationals that Bush and Co. used to justify the invasion and violent occupation of Iraq prior to the event have been proven definitively wrong I think the real discussion should be when are they going to be impeached, arrested and tried in a court of law?

When we argue about 'costs' the discussion inevitably turns to the tactics used in the invasion and detracts from the real issues.

It's all good, then.

You obviously haven't read The Lancet report that puts the number of Iraqi civilian casualties to AT LEAST 100k as of last October. The premier English medical journal performs the ONLY scientific measure of civilian casualties and you casually through out the stat of "around 7k." You gotta stop getting your info from Fox

Using a self-reporting census to count the number of dead people is hardly a "scientific measure." Especially not when coming from a group that already had a pre-conceived conception of the war and an agenda to push when making the report.

So, your opinion of the cost of war needs to be revisitted at the very least.

Your judgement on what makes a valid report needs to be revisited.

Using a self-reporting census to count the number of dead people is hardly a "scientific measure." Especially not when coming from a group that already had a pre-conceived conception of the war and an agenda to push when making the report.


You are absolutely correct, from now on I'm going to completely disregard any statistics quoted by the CDC, Census Bureau and any other organisation that uses internationally recognised standards. Furthermore.... naw, your response is beyond satire.

You are absolutely correct, from now on I'm going to completely disregard any statistics quoted by the CDC, Census Bureau and any other organisation that uses internationally recognised standards. Furthermore.... naw, your response is beyond satire.

Using a self reporting census is a viable method for many things the Census Bureau and the CDC do. They do not however attempt to use it to report civilian death counts. And they most definitely do not do so and report a 95% confidence interval ranging from 8,000 to 180,000. They also do not use such a method because it could potentially lead to double counting.

They also would not consider the method "using internationally recognized standards" when 2/3 of all their deaths came from one data point.

You are absolutely correct, from now on I'm going to completely disregard any statistics quoted by the CDC, Census Bureau and any other organisation that uses internationally recognised standards. Furthermore.... naw, your response is beyond satire.

And a further note, I suppose it is just "coincidence" that the report was fast-tracked by months to arrivive 4 days before the US Presidential Election. And of course none of the other organizations that have done civilian death counts that are even close to what the Lancet report claims is just "ho hum they're not using International Standards." No no, the Human Rights Watch is an organization that doesn't use international standards and when Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst for the HRW, said that "The methods that they used (in the lancet report) are certainly prone to inflation due to overcounting." is just a manipulation by the Pentagon.

Here is the problem spelled our for you simply. Myself and a guy 6 doors down are selected to be interviewed and we report the deaths that we know about. What are the chances that we're reporting many of the same deaths? Hmmm.

All I can say is, thank God the core principles of NIRA were ruled unconstitutional, and that modern Presidents can't pull half the crap FDR tried to do...

It's good to know our history, so we don't repeat it.. but it's also good that the President can't repeat it, legally. That helps. :)

You are absolutely correct, from now on I'm going to completely disregard any statistics quoted by the CDC, Census Bureau and any other organisation that uses internationally recognised standards. Furthermore.... naw, your response is beyond satire.

Would it be prudent to mention that people who conducted the Lancet study reevaluated their methodology and concluded that, for a number of reasons, it was flawed? Their best guess purs the death toll somewhere around 8-13 thousand, which is probably high, but not like the original. The original number was arrived at for publicity's sake: they knew where the money was at.

I'm assuming that the "2/3 deaths from one data point" is referring to the Fallujah data point? Is so you'll find it heartenning to know that that point was excluded from the model. If anything the finally number of 98k deaths as a central estimate was a conservate estimate.

As for the rest, your replies are once again beyond satire.

Would it be prudent to mention that people who conducted the Lancet study reevaluated their methodology and concluded that, for a number of reasons, it was flawed? Their best guess purs the death toll somewhere around 8-13 thousand, which is probably high, but not like the original. The original number was arrived at for publicity's sake: they knew where the money was at.

Interesting assertion, care to document it? Oh, and I'd like to hear what The Lancet's response to this alleged retraction is, since the report is one of the most heavily peer reviewed articles to be published in the entire history of the journal. The editors must have a lot of egg on their face right now.

I'm assuming that the "2/3 deaths from one data point" is referring to the Fallujah data point? Is so you'll find it heartenning to know that that point was excluded from the model. If anything the finally number of 98k deaths as a central estimate was a conservate estimate.

Why yes, because when they did include it they came out with about 200k death and they decided that that number was to high so they removed it, tossed out their data, and kept the rest.

As for the rest, your replies are once again beyond satire.

They're simply beyond your ability to comprehend apparently.

Interesting assertion, care to document it? Oh, and I'd like to hear what The Lancet's response to this alleged retraction is, since the report is one of the most heavily peer reviewed articles to be published in the entire history of the journal. The editors must have a lot of egg on their face right now.

As I have stated above we have the problem of double counting. We also have the problem that the Lancet Report extrapolated their data over the entire country based on their areas. Ignoring that the main cause of their deaths was bombing and that most of Iraq has not faced anything approaching significant bombing.

Indeed their report would average out to 180 deaths per day. I've got a feeling it would be impossible for that not to make the news daily when we discover that we slaughtered another 200 civilians every day.