These arguments aren't archaic.

It seems to me that a high percentage of this n.g. is anti-New Deal,
anti-Fair Deal, anti-New Frontier et cetera.

Therefore, as one in 2008 looks bubble-deflating economic & financial
collapse in the face, it couldn't hurt to re-visit the pros and cons
of FDR's interventions into the economy.

The Right argues that the New Deal prolongs the Depression, as the
book reviewer
smacks around a conservative poltical-economist in the left-liberal
NATION.

FDR is my political hero, while I think I understand his economic
opponents' pov.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080407/phillips-fein

On Mar 22, 6:22 pm, Robert Cohen msn.com> wrote:

Except that your "left-liberal" reviewer acknowledges that fact,
"Shlaes is, of course, correct that the New Deal failed to restore
economic health."

Then she resorts to the standard cliche that it was the build-up to
WW11 - and then presumably the war itself - which finally ended the
Depression. I would think this is an argument which should make a
lefty squirm. The way out of a depression is to build tanks? (This is
a variant of the "Broken Window Fallacy").

There was certainly no shortage of massive gov't spending in the years
preceding designed to "get people back to work".

On Mar 23, 12:44 am, Fred Weiss papertig.com> wrote:

On Mar 23, 8:33 am, Robert Cohen msn.com> wrote:

That changes the subject. The question was whether The New Deal got us
out of the Depression. You brought it up.

I'll be happy to discuss the supposed "de-regulating" of banking
separately...again.

We weren't discussing "Reaganism". However I don't think you'll much
like the comparison of how Reagan's policies turned around Carter
"stagflation" vs. FDR's New Deal failure to reverse the Depression.
Furthermore, Reagan can be given at least some credit for the fall of
communism, a legacy which was perhaps the most significant factor in
the boom of the 1990's (not Clinton's "high taxes"). In contrast,
while Roosevelt did nothing to stop WW11, he directly contributed to
the strengthening of the Soviet Union.

Fred Weiss

On Mar 23, 10:37 am, Fred Weiss papertig.com> wrote:

On Mar 23, 10:55 am, Robert Cohen msn.com> wrote:

None. The SEC should be abolished.

To avoid the usual straw man now rushing onto the stage, that does not
mean that the securities industry becomes "deuces wild" and "anything
goes". Securities fraud (just like any kind of commercial fraud),
properly defined, should just as vigorously be prosecuted.

But there is no valid basis, morally or economically, for the notion
that we should be freed of the responsibility of incurring the
consequences of our own bad financial decisions - and that is true
whether one is a private investor or a major financial institution.

There are many millions of people who did not get swept up in the
recent real estate mania, some even who were prescient enough to
profit from it by selling long held property to take advantage of the
high prices. Many such people, now sitting on substantial amounts of
cash, would be happy to re-enter the market as prices come down. They
should not in addition be compelled to bail out those whose judgment
was not as good.

On Mar 23, 12:05 pm, Fred Weiss papertig.com> wrote:

If you though Battle of the Wilderness was bad wait until 2/3rds of
the oil is gone.

The ancien regime never had it so bad.

Bret Cahill

On Mar 23, 3:47 pm, Robert Cohen msn.com> wrote:

But the gov't you hope will protect us won't "lie, cheat, and steal"?

Fred Weiss

On Mar 24, 7:17 am, Fred Weiss papertig.com> wrote:

I am not polyanna.

Of course people are people.

Ideology in the real world is idiot-ology, as Emerson doesn't exactly
postulate (hobglobbins of narrow minds or whatever he says about
consistency).

This is not the ideal of scientific socialism versus the ideal of
libertarianism-objectivism.

As Hobbes might suggest: The govt's responsibility is to stave off
catastrophe for the overall polity.

It's pragmatism & adaptation.