Economist Robert Murphy on the Great Depression, and his new book.
Posts Tagged ‘Hoover’
Did Protectionism Cause the Great Depression?
The debate on whether or not the Smoot-Hawley Tariff directly contributed to the Great Depression and/or worsened the industrial decline remains alive and well. Paul Krugman does not believe that the Smoot-Hawley Tariff had a major effect. It did, and it should be studied and the lessons applied to current political trends.
Neither Keynes nor Friedman
The Federal Reserve did try to bailout banks during the Great Depression, Hoover did outspend every prior president in an attempt to stimulate the economy and no recession is caused by a drop in aggregate demand. These are Keynesian myths.
Hoover’s response to the October 1929 crash
After one has an understanding of the true scale of Hoover’s fiscal spending figures one can deduct that if government spending did not work during the first three years of the 1930s, there is no reason that it should have worked during the next four, either.
The Depression is Not Over
On Friday, 17 July, MSNBC reported that the “recession is slowing” in twenty-three major urban centers throughout the United States. They equate a slowing recession with a “bottoming out” economy. These trends show that early signs of recovery, or more accurately “bottoming out” (recovery begins only after the markets have cleared), can be deceiving. The United States’ economy is still clearing, and it has a long ways to go.
