BRIAN S. WESBURY: Abused and Depressed The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression
Shlaes, Amity
BOOKS IN REVIEW who disparage what they see as an emerging ‘Eurabia’ might bear a thought for the many Europeans who not only dread that prospect but are doing their best to avert it,...
...The Roosevelt administration attempted to control deflation by taking farmland out of production while some people were starving...
...Abused and Depressed F ROM AN ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE, the Roaring Twenties, rooted as they were in massive technological and demographic shifts, created a very vulnerable society...
...FDR said that he would stand up for “the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid...
...One late summer day in 1931 in Salt Lake City, the money ran out...
...She lets us walk through that time by letting us see it through the eyes of heroes, victims, naive utopians, evil-doers, the despondent, and the hopeful...
...Her book is entertaining, illuminating, and exceedingly fair...
...And no sensible person wants that...
...He invoked wartime powers and created Social Security...
...Liberals are still making the same arguments that they did in the Great Depression—that the wealthy are harming the economy, that chaos in the marketplace is inefficient (especially in health care), and that the government can do a better job of it...
...SHLAES DOES NOT DIRECTLY ENTER the economic debate about what caused the Great Depression...
...into new frontiers, well beyond the geographic push of the previous century...
...It goes against the American sense of promise, punishing those who dare to hope they might move ahead...
...Shlaes shows how speechwriters co-opted this phrase for Franklin Roosevelt’s first national radio address as a presidential candidate in April 1932...
...It makes paying mortgages, as well as property taxes, especially difficult...
...T H E A M E R I C A N R www.spectator.org or mail your contribution to The American Spectator Foundation, 1611 North Kent Street, Suite 901, Arlington, VA 22209...
...Most importantly, it provides a roadmap for understanding modern liberal political philosophy and tactics...
...JUNE 2007 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 71 The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression By Amity Shlaes (HARPERCOLLINS, 480 PAGES, $26.95) Reviewed by Brian S. Wesbury BOOKS IN REVIEW MS...
...It was the city, with all its abundance, that provided work, but only when the economy was doing well...
...mentor young conservative talent for careers in journalism...
...M S. SHLAES’of fresh air in its unique, individual-level view of the S BOOK IS A BREATH battles that took place during the Great Depression...
...The title comes from philosopher William Graham Sumner, who in 1883 worried that A and B would think something needed to be done to help X. A and B would then propose a law to fix things, and “their law always proposes to determine what C shall Brian S. Wesbury, The American Spectator’s economics editor, is Chief Investment Strategist at Claymore Advisors, LLC...
...For the working man, “deflation made it seem as though life were stacked against him...
...Although wealth increased rapidly, for many Americans this came with a serious downside...
...to The American Spectator today...
...To learn other ways to support contact Patrick Pyles at 703-807-2011 ext...
...That life came crashing down when the economy stopped growing...
...Hoover’s tax hike lifted the top rate from the mid20 percent range to 63 percent...
...do for X, or in the better case what A, B and C shall do for X.” Sumner wanted to “look up C and determine… what manner of man he is… the Forgotten Man… the man who is never thought of...
...Wfrom individuals and foundations to finance a significant portion of the magazine’s operations...
...We are convinced that in the long run lower rates are more productive than higher ones...
...If you care about markets, the economy, politics, or personal initiative, you will love this book...
...Tugwell is a star of this book, which reads like a novel...
...Shlaes describes in appropriately short-breathed prose the dizzying array of alphabet soup agencies started by the “brain trust...
...Many gave up trying to care for themselves and their families and taking a shot at a new way of life...
...In The Forgotten Man, Amity Shlaes, one of the world’s most respected observers and commentators on things economic, searches through the rubble of that era in a new and refreshing way...
...Spectator makes good anywhere...
...He probably said this after observing firsthand the things that Ms...
...is an independent nonprofit that publishes The American Spectator...
...So long as living standards were rising and the stock market was going up rapidly, the economic transformation was a huge net positive...
...Did you know that The American Spectator Foundation E RELY ON CONTRIBUTIONS UR ARTICLES TRANSFORM IDEAS We also train and LEASE GIVE GENEROUSLYA MONTHL Y REVIEW EDITED B YJUL Y / A UGUS T 2004 SPECTATO JUNE 2007 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 73...
...These longings for a planned, controlled, intellectually led command economy had long been front and center in the minds of the Roosevelt “brain trust...
...P. Otherwise liberals will end up having the final word in the war of ideas taking place in our country...
...The American just about...
...He had a great radio voice, deflation was spreading, banks were failing, unemployment was nearing 20 percent, and Herbert Hoover had persuaded Congress to pass a giant tax hike in June...
...If there was contradiction between different ideas, that did not matter...
...The tax hike added insult to injury...
...Ludwig von Mises once said that a stable value for our money is as least as important as a constitution or a bill of rights...
...It took Hoover’s huge mistakes and a Federal Reserve deflation to create the environment for a Roosevelt victory...
...The age of socialist experimentation began...
...BOOKS IN REVIEW who disparage what they see as an emerging ‘Eurabia’ might bear a thought for the many Europeans who not only dread that prospect but are doing their best to avert it, sometimes risking their lives...
...Just $39/year and the knowledge that you are among the many, the proud— an American Spectator...
...Deflation taxes risk takers and punishes leveragers...
...Shlaes’s excellent research has uncovered...
...Just two decades earlier it had been 7 percent...
...Ointo policy, shape political debates, and debunk the nutty ideas of the American left...
...One of them, a 13year old named William Troeller, hanged himself so that he would not take food away from his family—a forgotten family...
...Call 800-524-3469 or log onto www.spectator.org 72 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JUNE 2007 BOOKS IN REVIEW All of this crazed activity created massive uncertainty for businesses and consumers...
...Roosevelt’s policies probably had about as much to do with hoped for economic gains as hoped for political gain...
...Shlaes introduces him in 1927 when he, a few other economists, magazine writers, and union men went on a trip to the Soviet Union...
...The “brain trust” lost a few major battles along the way, but shifted America’s politics forever...
...We can hope that Burleigh’s book, published to high praise in England, is a sign of Europe’s looming recovery...
...Wonder Boy”) had signed the SmootHawley tariff into law over the objection of 1,028 economists who signed an open letter in protest...
...The higher risk of government interference in the economy caused many to hold off on making decisions...
...Deflation created the environment for a president to step over the constitutional line...
...The scary part is the book’s uncanny resemblance to our current time...
...Thank goodness the Supreme Court stood up to Roosevelt at some key moments...
...It’s a lucky number,” Roosevelt said, “because it’s three times seven...
...Each and every year, fewer and fewer people could support themselves from the land...
...But these are not normal times,” he said...
...The group was dazzled by the Soviets’ economic planning...
...Stuart Chase, a founder of Consumers’ Research (which would become Consumer Reports), reported that “sixteen men salt down the whole economic life of 146 million people for a year in advance as calmly as a Gloucester man salts down his fish… and… the actual performance for the year 1928 will not be so very far from the prophecies.… One suspects that even Henry Ford would quail before the order...
...The Constitution was an inconvenient barrier that was often ignored in the process...
...But she deftly uses anecdotal information to show the damage from deflation...
...Shlaes reports that under the National Recovery Administration, Harold Ickes “had authority to set production quotas, an authority he used to curtail supply in the name of driving up prices...
...The good news is that deflation, which was a risk several years ago, is no longer a threat...
...Contrary to all he stood for, Mellon supported the tax increase...
...The result is a rich, wonderfully original, and extremely textured history of an important time...
...But the late 1920s were going too well to convince Americans to try...
...They looked for a savior...
...The Roosevelt administration created the PWA, NRA, SEC, NRA, TVA, and many dozens of other agencies...
...history...
...Already, the money supply had fallen by a third and Herbert Hoover (a.k.a...
...The end result was a bankrupt Republican Party and a seven million vote margin of victory for Roosevelt in 1932...
...R. EMMETT TYRRELL, JR...
...She reports on the large movement toward barter and the use of privately printed “script,” which was made necessary by the Fed’s mistake of allowing the money supply to contract abruptly and banks to fail...
...Shlaes calls this Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon’s worst moment...
...By accelerating the specialization and division of labor, the Industrial Revolution pushed the U.S...
...Your contribution is tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law...
...With Henry Morgenthau in attendance, Roosevelt defended his decision to lift the price of gold by 21 cents...
...They are finding fertile ground because 21st-century technology is creating uncertainty, just like the Industrial Revolution did...
...But when the Depression hit, and unemployment rose to 25 percent, all of this probably seemed like a really bad joke—a bait and switch...
...Otherwise, we might still be in depression today...
...He works, he votes, he generally prays, but he always pays…” Ms...
...As a result, Roosevelt lifted tax rates again and instituted an undistributed profits tax, to punish companies that did not reinvest their profits...
...Tugwell missed the meeting, but the group eventually met with Stalin for six and a quarter hours...
...25 or email pylesp@spectator.org...
...Order your one-year subscription reading...
...The president knew that there was something wrong with the money supply, so he started manipulating the price of gold...
...The real forgotten man, that is anyone who was not in these favored interest groups, was attacked—often to help pay for the largesse of the government, but especially as the object of blame for the worst economic period in U.S...
...Roosevelt picked interest groups that he could essentially bribe with new government programs...
...Roosevelt wanted to prove to Americans that he was doing something...
...Donate online at www.spectator.org The American Spectator, Thank you...
...One of the signers was Rex Tugwell, a near socialist, and a committed supporter of Roosevelt...
...Shlaes recounts a meeting Roosevelt had in his bedroom to adjust the price of gold...
Vol. 40 • June 2007 • No. 5
