Worst President of the U.S.?

You ate trying to compare a WORLDWIDE depression, to local us recessions. It's incomparable. The whole reason hitker came to powere was because of the depression on top of the horrible state the Versailles treaty put Germany in. It was a worldwide depression. It couldn't be fixed by just letting it run it's course. The rest of the works got out of the depression because of world war 2, 10 years after it started, and IMO the us got out of it before they went to war only thanks to the new deal, with world war 2 cementing the end of the depression.


And what at you saying war is always bad for the economy? From the time of the Romans, war has almost always been a benefit to the pverall economy.

That damn Hitker.

DAMN IT, the worst president of all time is easily MILLARD FILMORE!

Blame the iPhone, I hate having to use this damn thong on the forums. Stupid brother and no computer or Internet.-_-

Thank you iPhone, you have given me something to post in out of context.

LOL! I hate this thIng.

The 1919 recession hit most of the world and it ended in less than a year.

I already explained why war is bad for the economy. Broken Window Fallacy.

I do blame the iPhone, damn thong.

Explain again then please, because I must have missed it which I often do on this damned thing.

No... just no. War is never good for an economy. EVER. Ever hear of the Broken Window Fallacy? Here's an article:http://economics.about.com/od/warandtheeconomy/a/warsandeconomy_3.htm
and a video:
In case you don't want to read/watch I'll go over the basics. A hooligan throws a brick into the baker's window. The community gathers round and decides that the hooligan helped stimulate the economy because now the glass maker will be paid money to fix the window, and then the glass maker can pay other people for other goods and services. The baker comes out and points out that they're all ignoring what he would have done with the money had the window not been broken. He was planning to buy a new suit the next day, and then the suit maker could have used that money to buy goods and services. Instead of the baker getting a new suit, all he has now is a window (which he had before) and less money. The baker has a net loss of wealth.

Copied from last page ^

GDP represents the total dollar value of all goods and services produced over a specific time period. That's a pretty good gauge of economical health I'd say. GNP is the total value of all final goods and services produced within a nation in a particular year, plus income earned by its citizens, which I'd say is another good gauge of the economy's health. Its obviously affected by government spending, because the entire economy is. But its only affected, not a direct effect of government spending.

Its raw data, I could care less who wrote it.

Its also bigger than any other period of economic turmoil, and there's really nothing to compare it to.

And how the hell do you intend to prove this besides wild speculation? I can prove that during Hoover's presidency the economy crashed and that during FDR's presidency it got better, and I can prove that when FDR cut spending in 1937 the economy crashed again. Your theory is all very nice and all, but you have so far provided nothing to back it up.

You do realize that the recovery of the economy was actually relatively fast in my opinion? The unemployment rate fell by around 3% each year. Consider that. The population of the US in that time period was around 128 million people. That means around 3,800,000 people were employed each year. Now, obviously the entire population is not in the labor force. So, lets assume half of those were in the labor force. That's still around 1,400,000 people getting jobs each year. If unemployment fell that fast in today's recession then over 4 million people would be employed each year. I don't know about you, but I think that's some very good recovery.

Recessions and depressions are often caused because people overspend and then panic and stop spending all together. Which creates a panic which leads to a recession and if the economy gets worse then it can become a depression. So Roosevelt's spending made the GNP go up because he boosted consumer confidence, people got more money (remember GNP includes income) and the economy got better. Essentially you just agreed with me.

The calculation for GDP is C+G+I+NX. G is government spending. The rest of it is private industry stuff. If G goes up a substantial amount, even if the other 3 go down, then GDP can still go up. That's why I don't think GDP is effective, because the government can spend a massive amount and make the economy "look healthy," even if it isn't.

You should. People lie.

You can compare it to every other recession/panic that the US suffered.

Correlation =/= causation. Just because two things happened simultaneously, doesn't mean that one caused the other. Hoover's presidency the economy crashed, and in FDR's it got better. That doesn't mean that either of those two people actually did anything to affect it. It's simple logic. You look at every single recession that happened prior to the Great Depression, see that they weren't anywhere as severe, and look at what was different. In this recession there was massive government spending and it got worse. Explain that.

No offense, but your opinion, on matters is economics, is worth about the same as a pile of dog shit to me. You're not an economist. Moving past that, the population figures is completely meaningless. We're looking at percentages. It fell by 3% per year you say, I say that without FDR meddling with the economy it would have recovered much faster. 3% isn't fast when 30% of people don't have jobs.

I agree with you insomuch that I agree that GNP went up under Roosevelt. What we disagree on is whether that means anything. I say it doesn't because FDR's spending is what drove GNP to the positives, and, thus, it isn't a good indicator of the economy.[/quote]

Its not likely for the GDP to go up if everything else is down. If you have the numbers 2,2,2, and 10, the mean is still going to be quite low (4, in this case). If a healthy economy is 10, then it still doesn't have all that much of an effect. I see your point though.

Its also numbers that I've frequently seen on graphs across the interwebz. It just happens to be presented in a different way.

No you can't, this one was much worse than any of the others for a number of reasons of which many are debated. The only one that comes close is the recession inside the depression.

Yes it is simple logic. I'll lay it out for you. Hoover comes into office and economy fails. Probably not his fault but the worsening of it probably was. FDR comes in and implements New Deal and the economy gets better. So far your logic is sound. Here's where it fails. When FDR cuts New Deal spending just for a year, the economy once again plummets. Obviously there is some sort of a correlation here.

Are you an economist? If not, point is moot. 3% is very fast for any period. It doesn't really matter how many people are unemployed. Just because a bunch of people are unemployed it doesn't suddenly mean the unemployment rate should fall faster. The population figures were to give everyone a scope of how much 3% actually is, because it certainly doesn't sound like much.

FDR's spending has no effect on the income of the average citizen, or the goods they're getting, as far as I know. The US government does not provide goods. Services is the only thing I can see his spending actually effecting.

This one was worse because of Hoover's spending and the Smoot-Hawley Tariff.

Here's what happened. Economy had a recession. Hoover reacts unlike any other president had beforehand by strangling international trade and spending. Economy plummets and unemployment goes to 30%. Do you disagree with me so far? Then, FDR comes into office and does the same thing as Hoover, except on steroids, and the economy takes, at least, 9 years to recover. Hoover and FDR had the same policies. You can't say one worked and another didn't. Again, correlation =/= causation.

No, but I've probably studied it more than you. I see your point though, but I counter that I'm not making baseless opinion comments like "3% seems high to me." It does mean that, because all those people are driving wages down and making them even more valuable to hire. Of course, FDR forced wages to be extremely high during the Great Depression, which means that businesses had less incentive to hire.

FDR spent a lot on pensions, public works, and different subsidies, along with other programs such as closing banks and forcing people to wait to get their money. FDR also passed the NIRA, which was later declared unconstitutional, which basically let different businesses form a cartel and drive their own prices up to help with business.

Among other reasons.

I can say that Hoover's policies were halfhearted and that's why they failed. Roosevelt's policies were much more goal oriented and organized. Which often helps quite a bit. We also can't know that the economy would have recovered faster without the New Deal because we have nothing of significance to compare it to.

So you are in favor of a lower mimumum wage? Also, prove that it goes down faster because of that. The same amount of people are getting hired, there's just a lot more competition.

That still isn't effecting income, or it is and I'm just too tired to see it. Its 1 in the morning, I've had a long day moving in, and my mind is dull. I'll be back on tomorrow, maybe.

No, it's all on Hoover. I'm telling you exactly what happened and you're just saying that other stuff happened too. There is no reason beside what Hoover did that makes the Great Depression any different than the 1919 recession.

Say whatever you want about Hoover, but disorganized or halfhearted isn't one of them. He was Secretary of Commerce under the two presidents before him and he also set up a humanitarian charity thing in Belgium after WW1 (I think... I may need to check my facts here. He definitely did something.)

Yes, we can know what happened because the US had other recessions before the Great one. We can't just say "oh those don't count" just because they invalidate your argument completely.

I'm in favor of no minimum wage. Again, simple logic. If there is a surplus of workers, then their worth will go down. That means businesses will be able to hire more of them. Roosevelt, however, forced businesses to keep their wages high, just like Hoover, which meant that they didn't have the money to hire more people. They didn't have the money to hire, so they didn't hire.

Pensions directly affects income since it is giving money to people for absolutely nothing. Public works is giving money to people for doing things, usually bullshit things like chasing tumbleweeds or painting walls. NIRA increased wages and prices, which affects income pretty directly.

I don't feel like going into detail right now, but there were a million different reasons
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_the_Great_Depression

He was still a bit too cautious and seemingly not as confident about pushing massive bills through congress as Roosevelt was.

They don't count because they were not nearly as big. How many times do I have to explain this to you? Lets put it too a simple analogy. A house fire starts and I grab my fire extinguisher and start trying to blow it out and then the fire department comes along and it goes out for good, but it appeared as if the fire was steadily getting smaller as I put the extinguisher on it. Then you come along, show me a candle, wait for it to burn out and say, "See? It took much less time!" Do you get it now?

Well, I guess that does make sense. But it still wouldn't have made much of a difference. You don't hire a ton of people to do the same job just a few could do. Its all about the jobs that are open, they don't create jobs just to fit in more people that want to work for less.

Fair enough, that makes sense. But it still has to include other stuff that government spending does not effect.

I think I'll stay out of this one. It makes my head hurt.

http://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/fms/...ice/Speeches/2011/Why-have-a-minimum-wage.pdf

We weren't debating the cause of the Great Depression, we're debating what made the Depression "Great" to begin with. Hoover's policies were the only thing that made it different from any other recession.

An excellent book I have that details the Great Depression has the 4 things Hoover did in response to the stock market crash. 1. He propped up wages. Hoover had several White House conferences with many businessmen in November, 1929. He convinced the businessmen to keep wages at their current level (Henry Ford promised to raise wages) and to keep investment spending.
2. Cripple international trade. This is pretty obvious. The Smoot-Hawley tariffs stopped pretty much all international trade. I don't need to explain how this is catastrophic.
3. Tax and spend. In fiscal year 1933, the government ran a deficit of $2.6 billion.
4. Install a New Deal-Lite. Hoover subsidized farmers, like FDR. Hoover was granted about $600 million by congress for public works programs. Hoover created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, which lent $1 billion in it's first 5 months of existing to prop up unhealthy banks and railroads.

How many times do I have to explain this to you? The reason this depression was worse than all those before it is because of government spending and free market restrictions. That's why the Great Depression was Great. Hoover made it that bad because of his outrageous spending, strangling trade, and restrictions on the free market. Do you get it now?

If I want to expand my company, and therefore make more money, then I need to hire more people. If I don't hire people, I won't be able to produce as much, or provide as much services.