[quote=Arraya]
Alan, correct me if I am wrong. Are you saying government spending coupled with working together for the greater good is what we need?
Isn’t war government spending? That would fall under Keynesian-like stimulus. Hmmm
However, FERs polices did get some people working again and built things of value, when the country was mired in unrest and starvation. Sure, at the time, the prevailing ethos was laissez faire(which ironically was a planned doctrine), so it made his policies very divisive. You can’t use a logic of IF his polices did not fully pull the country out of depression THEN doing X(nothing?) would have been better. It’s just not an argument you can make.
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Arraya: I wasn’t arguing that FDR’s policies had NO effect during the Great Depression, rather, I argued that WWII had a GREATER effect than did FDR’s policies.
As I pointed out in one of my responses to SK: There is no magic solution. The problems are deep-seated and structural and both parties are mired in moribund thinking and failed policies. However, this is the US and I’m more hopeful about America pulling out of this, than I am about China, Japan or the Eurozone.
America is an exceptional country, but not because of God and His blessings, but rather due to demography, geography and abundant natural resources (and our big-ass military). Push comes to shove, the US is better prepared to ride this out, than, say Greece or France or even England. China is in a great deal more peril, especially over the long haul than we are (as their demography chickens come home to roost), as is Japan. The European Socialist model is running rapidly out of road and demography is becoming an ever-larger issue there, too, in terms of replacement rate and aging.
This isn’t meant to sound nationalistic or jingoistic, just the facts on the ground. It also isn’t meant to sound triumphalist, either, especially since we’ve done such a good job over the last three generations of really fucking things off (Right, Left and Center combined).
