Most of this part of the chapter is devoted to the efforts and agitation to reflate prices up to their pre-depression levels.
Fortunately, quite a few of these efforts fizzled out, but enough made it into official policy that the economy suffered another blow at the end of the year, after a small uptick.
Today’s short video was inspired by an awful video about aluminum cans and the environment.
The Nirvana Fallacy is not the only mistake this guy makes, but it is the most frequent one.
False declarations of human “rights,” failure to understand the profit motive, a top-down view of the economy… there is a lot of foolishness to cover!
Chapter eleven of America’s Great Depression covers Hoover’s continued flailing as during 1932 as all of his policies make the depression worse.
In this part, we’re covering about half of the chapter, up through the section “Governmental Relief,” ending on page 301 in the Fifth Edition. (Next week we will spend most of our time on the two sections detailing the inflation in 1932.)
Chapter ten covers the events of 1931. Basically, after massive state intervention didn’t fix the problem in 1929 or 1930, Hoover gets the great idea that more government intervention will fix the problem in 1931 and 1932… with disastrous results.
Up until 1930, Hoover had (at least) resisted the swan song of massive government control over the economy and huge federal relief programs. During 1930, that resistance waned and set the stage for the rest of the depression.
Alternative places to watch the video are on Odysee, BitChute, and YouTube.
Get my full notes here.
References
(FYI, Rothbard cites a bunch of defunct journals and magazines in this chapter that are practically impossible to find outside of university library archives these days, but I did my best.)
Anderson, Economics and the Public Welfare
https://archive.org/details/economicspublicw0000ande/page/n3/mode/2up
Clark, Central Banking under the Federal Reserve System…
https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/central-banking-federal-reserve-system-314
Aldrich, The Causes of the Present Depression and Possible Remedies
https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Causes_of_the_Present_Depression_and.html?id=iijIAAAAMAAJ
Dorfman, The Economic Mind in American Civilization…
https://mises.org/library/book/economic-mind-american-civilization-1606-1865-volume-one
Bernstein, The Lean Years…
https://archive.org/details/leanyearshistory0000bern_f7p8/page/n5/mode/2up
Warren, Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression
https://archive.org/details/herberthoovergre0000warr_f2d0
Hayes, Activities of the President’s Emergency Committee for Employment
https://books.google.com/books/about/Activities_of_the_President_s_emergency.html?id=7QHJAAAAMAAJ
Congressional Record 75, including January 11, 1932
https://archive.org/details/sim_congressional-record-proceedings-and-debates_january-04-19-1932_75/page/1654/mode/2up
Monthly Labor Review 32 (1931), including p. 834
https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/monthly-labor-review-6130/april-1931-608201?page=62
Wolman, Wages in Relation to Economic Recovery
https://books.google.com/books/about/Wages_in_Relation_to_Economic_Recovery.html?id=Vh1QAQAAMAAJ
Angly, Oh Yeah?
https://books.google.com/books/about/Oh_Yeah.html?id=rTWMAAAACAAJ
Salary and Wage Policy in the Depression
https://archive.org/details/salarywagepolicy0000unse/page/n3/mode/2up
Harrod, The Life of John Maynard Keynes
https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.462199
(I had no luck finding any electronic resource for the very old Barron’s issues referenced in footnote 17 on page 270)
Putnam, Is Wage Maintenance a Fallacy, in Journal of the American Bankers’ Association
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015086750646&q1=putnam&start=1
Divine, American Immigration Policy
https://archive.org/details/americanimmigrat0000divi/page/n7/mode/2up
Abbott, Public Assistance
https://archive.org/details/publicassistance0001edit/page/n3/mode/2up
Schlesinger, The Crisis of the Old Order, 1919-1933
https://archive.org/details/ageofrooseveltcr0000unse/page/n3/mode/2up
Fusfeld, The Economic Thought of Franklin D. Roosevelt
https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Economic_Thought_of_Franklin_D_Roose.html?id=tRZUQwAACAAJ
Monthly Labor Review 33 (1931) containing p. 1341-1342
https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/monthly-labor-review-6130/june-1931-608203?page=10
Wendt, The Role of the Federal Government in Housing
https://www.huduser.gov/portal/sites/default/files/pdf/Federal-Government-in-Housing.pdf
Nash, Herbert Hoover and the Origins of the RFC
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1892269
Monthly Labor Review 33 (1931), containing pages 1049-1057
https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/monthly-labor-review-6130/november-1930-608195?page=9
Frederick, Readings in Economic Planning
https://search.worldcat.org/en/title/228876
alternate link:
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Readings_in_Economic_Planning/Xo_XAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0&bsq=frederick%20%22readings%20in%20economic%20planning%22
Loth, Swope of G.E.
https://archive.org/details/swopeofgestoryof00loth/page/n5/mode/2up
Donham, Business Adrift
https://archive.org/details/businessadrift0000wall
Coit, Mr. Baruch
https://archive.org/details/mrbaruch00coit_0
The Magazine of Wall Street including December 14, 1929, unfortunately I could find no better link…
https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/QKxLAQAAIAAJ?hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjU6OH-gd-IAxWCkO4BHXobAEIQre8FegQIAxA1
Tugwell, The Democratic Roosevelt
https://archive.org/details/democraticroosev00tugw
Stocking, Stabilization of the Oil Industry…
https://www.jstor.org/stable/46
Watkins, A Planned Economy Through Coordinated Control of Basic Industries
https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_Planned_Economy_Through_Coordinated_Co/aOcyHAAACAAJ?hl=en
In chapter nine, Rothbard covers the ups and downs of 1930. This year is particularly interesting because it seemed as if the quick actions in the last quarter of 1929 had fixed the problems. In the first half of 1930, the general public thought things were looking good, considering how markets had bounced back and how a massive propaganda campaign was targeted at making them feel secure.
Of course, the additional inflationary spending of late 1929 and early 1930 only made the problem bigger while papering over it for a short time.
Rothbard covers the very start of the Depression in this chapter, basically the second half of 1929, with some historical digressions to set the stage.
The biggest takeaways from this chapter are that Hoover bullied industry into keeping wage rates up and construction expanding. He also went along with farm cartelization efforts over the previous fifteen years and tried to control many crop prices via the Federal Farm Board, which was catastrophically ineffective but tried over and over again.
Show notes here.
No extensive notes for this one, I just keep seeing people shilling for this idiotic unrealized gains tax, and I felt compelled to say something.
As Bastiat tells us, it’s not just the immediate effects of a policy we should look at, it’s the longer-term and more subtle effects that we must understand before we implement it.
Chapter seven of the book attempts to explain Hoover’s interventionist policies and chart their progress in the period from 1920-1929.
Show notes here.
One of the things I’m working on to promote libertarian values is working with the Free New Mexico Party, the state’s affiliate for the National Libertarian Party.
I’m the Vice Chair and the Secretary, and last week I sat down with the Chair, Dereck Scott, on the great web show Spoken Words in New Mexico.
You can find the show here, and I recommend checking out their other content, as well!
Dereck and I speak for over three hours about the difficulties facing the liberty movement in the U.S., including our worries about both Republican and Democratic policies.
Might as well plug the party website while I’m here, so:
I had a fun thought the other day: Why is it that Keynesian shills like Paul Krugman usually don’t like Modern Monetary Theory?
After all, both of them promote the same irresponsible and destructive policies of massive government spending and interference with the market…