When Did Americans Stop Blaming Hoover for the Great Depression?

[louis c]

Answer: NEVER

Although it was the Republican policies in the 1920's (tax cuts for the rich, deregulation of Wall Street and the banks) that caused the Great Depression exactly 80 years ago today, Hoover got all the blame. No one in the 1930's ever blamed the Democrats or FDR. The reason was simple, the Republicans were to blame and the Democrats weren't. Only a simpleton doesn't get that historical fact and only a simpleton wouldn't get that now.

President Obama had it right yesterday in Florida. He was hired to clean up the mess that the Republicans created and now, those same folks who caused this mess are complaining about how the president is handling the mop.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

1. Question:

Was it "deregulation" of the stock market or was there none to begin with at that point in America?
I watched a special on crash of the market night on TV and found it all very interesting.

IMO, the current situation came about due to a bipartisan effort that spanned a few administrations leading inevitably to the housing bubble. It really is unfair to point at one group, simply because they was there when the bubble popped... IMO that is a simpleton's view of things. There were a few calls from both sides of the aisles warning about the sub-prime problem & bank regulation and these calls were overwhelmingly met from a loud NO on both sides of the aisle as well. The calls to alarm fell by the wayside and each group continued chipping away at the foundation until W's war was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Well, the war was more like dropping a Volkswagen on the camel's back, but you get he picture.

The big mistake Bushco made was driving debt through the roof so that when Main Street and Wall Street needed a bailout the government was in a pickle to provide it. Had W not ballooned the national debt and weakened the economy, I'm sure the economy could have absorbed the burst housing bubble just in the same way Clinton's economy absorbed the dot.com bubble when it popped.

That's not to say blame should be equally shared either. To deny one party or the other is "to blame" is awfully juvenile, imo.

[HowHasItComeToThis]

12. WATCHED THE "CRASH" SHOW LAST NIGHT

EERILY SIMILAR TO THE BUSH YEARS

[louis c]

30. Repeal of Glass-Stickle in 1999

with implementation of Graham-Leach.

read that story. clinton signed it into law because it was attached to an appropriations bill. Nearly every Democrat voted against the Amendment in the House ans Senate.

tax cuts for the wealthy-----In 1923 tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans caused the money to be redistributed to the already rich. sound familiar?

Some Democrats, especially the DLC and blue dogs may side with repukes, but the fundamental differences are apparent when you compare their philosophies. The same repuke philosophy that caused the Great Depression caused this latest economic collapse. Dn't be fooled by bull shit.

[monmouth]

2. PBS showed "Hoover Landslide" last night. Wonderful program and

for me there was much new information on the man. "American Experience" was on earlier and touched on Hoover and the depression. I believe next week will be a continuation of both excellent programs.

[HowHasItComeToThis]

13. THEY HAVE BEEN CONTINUING THOSE PROGRAMS FOR MANY YEARS

[DemReadingDU]

14. I watched both PBS programs last evening. very good

Check local PBS schedules, they may be replaying on TV today and tomorrow.

The Crash of 1929 can also be watched via online computer
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/crash/


Browse the entire PBS American Experience series featuring over 200 films via online computer.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/onlineFilms/era/greatdepressionwwii/

[monmouth]

29. A first for me....n/t

[Bitwit1234]

3. Frustrating to say the least but

the republicans panned FDR's programs the whole time taking advantage of them. Then if you follow a lot of the History Channel's programs you see where the commentators reports that in some of the years after the programs helped, the republicans started to take credit. They said that Hoover had set all these programs, WPA etc and FDR just followed thru on them.

I wonder if ten years from now when Obama and the democrats pull us out of this mess Fox is not bantering the point that bush set it all up, and all Obama did was follow HIS plans. It might not take ten years. They showed a video clip where it said that Bush policies was starting to bring us out of this....don't remember the exact words. But it was giving bush the credit for everything.

[Fumesucker]

4. What the hell does a vacuum clener have to do with feeling blue?

/Average American


Only a slight amount of :sarcasm:, I'm really more serious than sarcastic.

[fascisthunter]

5. which speaks volumes to the fact that the GOP wants the system to be broken

and yet expect the lowerclasses to pay for it all, while blaming them for the very predicament they caused themselves.

[tmyers09]

6. Incredibly true statement!

[AllentownJake]

7. In the Great Depression you can blame just Republicans not now

It isn't just republicans that can be blamed. President Bush was a disaster but the great recession or the great depression II whatever you want to call it, is a totally bipartisan phenomena.

Without the banking and securities de-regulation of the Reagan/BushI era the cops would still be walking the beat on the banking and securities industry

Without the repeal of Glass Steagal, NAFTA, GATT, and blocking of Brooksly Born's attempt to regulate the derviative market you don't have the conditions for the crash of 2008.

Without the Bush Administration's hands off approach on the few remaining regulations and laws still in place there is no crash.

There has been a 30 year mismanagement of our economy by both parties and trying to pin it all on one political party is dubious.

It will remain to be seen if the President moves to restore pre-1980s America regulatory wise or if he paints over a rotting wall and claims victory on reform.

[kentuck]

9. The Democrats are "guilty" of following the leader.

But I don't think they conceived or managed the policies of the Bush Administration. I don't accept the "equal blame" charge.

[AllentownJake]

10. I do

I blame the Clinton ecomomic team as much as I blame Bush. Of course, the democratic credentials of Alan Greenspan, Larry Summers, Bob Rubin, and Tim Geithner are dubious at best.

Somewhere after the Carter Administration democrats started reaching out to Republican ideological figures who called themselves democrats or moderate republicans to fill important cabinet roles in Defense and the economic sector.

[Captain Hilts]

23. Carter started de-regulation. He got the ball rolling. nt

[AllentownJake]

24. Throw him in the ranks of the stupid as well

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

17. Agreed, (see post #1) n/t

[Greyhound]

18. Don't forget Clinton's "looking forward", his consent to the criminality of

previous administrations allowed these parasites to finish the job Clinton was elected to stop.

"Ignore what they say, watch what they do".

[AllentownJake]

19. Bill Clinton was an economic disaster

If it wasn't for the computer this would have happened in the 90s.

[Greyhound]

20. And he went right along with the parasites that killed the "new economy".

I'll never forget the millions that paid the price for his treason.

[AllentownJake]

28. It was amazing how quickly

The jobs created by the new economy all ended up in India.

[Greyhound]

37. Exactly, the sector was still in its infancy and *poof*...

And these were the jobs that were replacing the jobs lost in manufacturing.

We are so dumb.

[Romulox]

8. FDR represented a radical break from the policies of Hoover. Obama has not made any radical break.

[AllentownJake]

11. Why do you hate the President

by stating the obvious.

[Captain Hilts]

22. Like Hoover, Obama's policies have reinforced existing economic power structures. Now, it

might be the way to start, and it might not. We'll see.

[anonymous171]

25. Yep. TARP = Millionaire's dole. nt

[quaker bill]

31. requested and enacted by Bush folks

[AllentownJake]

32. Approved by the leaders of the democratic party

Including the current President.

[quaker bill]

33. To resolve situation created by Bush

and his lovely "ownership society" initiative.

[AllentownJake]

34. started by the Clinton Adminstration

and the repeal of Glass Steagal and refusal to regulate derivatives.

This is a bi-partisan depression...thanks to campaign finances.

[Romulox]

35. Voted for and 50% spent by Obama... nt

[ieoeja]

26. Obama is proving to be more Clinton than FDR.

I still hold out some hope after he gets through with Medical Insurance reform. But I suspect that we have seen it happen a second time in a row: elect a Democrat to rollback Reaganism only to see him embrace it instead.

[SoCalDem]

15. Americans have short memories,(collectively)

and when people who were adults when a particular thing happened, die..well most of the rest of us never learn much about it.

Most people have a high school education (or less), and only the ones who go on to college and who study history when there, or the ones who are self-motivated to read history, know very much about anything.

We have the attention span of a toddler.. One day it's Balloon-Boy, and then we're off on another tangent.

[Hidden Stillness]

16. Only the Media Stopped Blaming Hoover, Not the Censored People

Thank you for this thread; it is a relief to find that things are still able to be known, after a generation of extremist corporate Republican media propaganda. My parents believed that Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt were saints, they taught us kids that, and they were right. I read and learned more, after they died, and it only reinforced how great, and brave, they were. NO ONE had any problems identifying Hoover as a conservative, big-business Republican: tax-cutting, deregulating, anti-union, and no programs to help the people. Areas where the homeless lived under makeshift shelters were called "Hoovervilles," newspapers were "Hoover blankets," on and on--everybody used to know all the bitter jokes. Hoover was a conservative Republican with extensive corporate ties, including to banker Charles Dawes, who had been Vice-President under Coolidge. Dawes ran Hoover's version of the "Wall Street bailout," the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, and then resigned. Immedialtely after, Dawes's bank received $90,000,000 that was never paid back! Everybody who even followed the news--as you could do then--knew this.

There used to be no problem at all identiying what the cause was, the proble, and the cure. Everybody--historians, newspapers, ordinalry people--correctly identified Hoover as a big-business Republican conservative who was cold and hated "the little people." Great historians, with memories of the time, such as William Leuchtenberg, still tell it correctly. Everybody knew that as soon as the FDR Administration came in with proposals, plans, public works, relief for the poor and unemployed, things improved, and only got worse when Republicans started to fight the New Deal later, around 1937. ONLY after the corporate media was consolidated and turned to rich corporate propaganda, did you suddenly get the bizarre, lying "Hoover was 'REALLY,' 'SECRETLY' a 'progressive,' " and "the New Deal made it 'worse,' " with no evidence, just repitition. There didn't used to be any problem at all knowing the truth; for generations everybody was clear--until the media consolidated and took over all the public forums of society.

The only problem is, Obama is acting like Hoover, not Roosevelt. It will never work.

[dflprincess]

27. Last year I was on a road trip and we stopped at the Hoover Library in Iowa

For someone raised by parents who, like yours, taught me to worship the Roosevelts (and I still do) it was educational. Hoover wasn't quite the beast I was taught he was - more a victim of his time and caught in a particular way of thinking. After WWII he did help establish UNICEF and CARE so he had moments when he wasn't a total corporate tool (and just think of how working with the U.N. would make right wing heads explode today).

BUT, even at his library they mention that he went to his grave gloating that he had outlived all the New Dealers and he still thought FDR had been wrong about everything he did during the Depression.

[Captain Hilts]

21. True. And it wasn't really fair to him, though he did spend the '30s trashing FDR. nt

[Flaneur]

36. I still blame him.