Thank you for considering the following:
December 8, 2008
Wanting to Believe Does Not Make it So…
Elections have come and gone where candidates entered office on the coattails of the ‘hope’ and ‘change’ mantra. No, this is not the first time however much the naďve might like to think so. In fact, the comparisons between Obama and every charismatic personality from Jesus Christ to JFK to FDR have flooded the media for months. It is the last name mentioned, however, that I would like to discuss.
Hmmm, FDR, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the President of the United States who stood at the helm throughout the Great Depression and World War II… the man who was the standard bearer of the free world for an unprecedented four terms (notwithstanding his early death while in office)… the man ever my father paid homage to by designating himself as a New Deal Democrat until his own passing.
The question is twofold. Was FDR a savior or a scourge and, depending on the answer to that query, is this the man to whom Mr. Obama would really prefer to be compared?
I realize that many who actually weathered the Depression will likely take offense at the foregoing, but I have my reasons for writing those words. First, because the Depression was so deeply felt for so many years, those who survived were scarred in some way by the experience. For my father, it was the need to keep a stocked pantry in preparation for a possible time of being without enough food for his family. For others it may be the need to have real funds stashed somewhere safe, or own their home mortgage-free. Second is the need to believe that whatever the government instituted to combat the fierce battle with unemployment, hunger, inadequate clothing, lack of shelter or illness, it was all to the good of the country.
But was it?
Economists who now have the privilege of hindsight can thoroughly evaluate the actions taken by the Roosevelt administration and whether or not they were truly beneficial to the United States. The conclusion does not jibe with the wistfulness of my father and many of his generation. In fact, many experts agree that the economic programs he instituted actually extended the Depression by years rather than alleviating the suffering.
http://www.cato.org/dailys/12-29-03.html
How could that be? The answer to that is simpler than one would think. By the government interfering with market momentum and initiating price fixing, artificially high wages and blocking foreign competition, the economy slogged along without change creating a dependency on itself for succor – a duty that it (government) was, and is still, incapable of managing.
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/FDR-s-Policies-Prolonged-Depression-5409.aspx
All one has to do is look at the recent stock market devaluations that occurred as soon as this Congress got their greedy hands on a multi-billion dollar bail-out package. No sooner do lawmakers inveigle themselves in an attempt to shore up a pending economic disaster than they actually create one. Hence, the doom that overshadows current everyday news reports creating panic at every turn. Did not the same thing occur after the stock market crash of 1929? Isn’t this partially how ‘yellow journalism’ received its moniker in the 1890s? http://www.pbs.org/crucible/frames/_journalism.html
Obama has made the promise that he will create two and a half million new jobs rebuilding infrastructure (i.e. “crumbling roads” and bridges, etc.) through government oversight. Shades of FDR and the Public Works Administration
http://www.nps.gov/archive/elro/glossary/pwa.htm and the Civilian Conservation Corps. How does he expect to pay for the work? The same way Roosevelt did, tax dollars. Well, that’s the only way that government workers receive a wage, isn’t it? Money doesn’t appear out of nowhere. Though you’d think that’s the case if you listen to more than half the members of Congress, most of who have never worked in the business sector and have no knowledge of sound business practices. And this lack of business acumen is precisely what extended the Depression years rather than shortening them.
It isn’t change that Obama is planning, it’s New Deal Redux and a plunge into deeper economic distress than what is already on the doorstep. He’d be far better off to allow the free market to handle the problem once he takes office. At least business produces something other than high-faluting ideals that don’t add up on a balance sheet. The one difference between Obama and Roosevelt is that FDR had some opposition to deficit spending when Obama said, just November 17, 2008 that “the deficit doesn’t matter.”
http://video.aol.com/video-detail/obama-says-deficit-doesnt-matter/83270970/?icid=VIDURVNWS02
Simply because one wants to believe with all their heart that FDR’s New Deal was the solution rather than part of the problem, doesn’t make it so. And believing that Obama has all the answers (those same ones instituted by a failed FDR policy) won’t make that any more real, either.
A. Dru Kristenev
Author, “Gold Baron,” a novel of political intrigue, world markets and presumptive power brokers based on research of the underpinnings of real-time political and global financial maneuvering, and who’s instigating it.
Check out www.changingwind.org for fully researched blogs by “Gold Baron” character, Toddy Littman. The first innovative and interactive website of its kind.
