Text 9863, 73 rader
Skriven 2005-03-12 13:35:42 av John Hull (1:379/1.99)
   Kommentar till text 9858 av TIM RICHARDSON (1:123/140)
Ärende: GASOLENE PRICES ???
===========================
12 Mar 05 08:51, TIM RICHARDSON wrote to JOHN HULL:

 TR> On 03-12-05, JOHN HULL said to ED HULETT:

 JH>>12 Mar 05 02:40, Ed Hulett wrote to Stan Hardegree:

 EH>> Stan Hardegree -> THURSTON ACKERMAN wrote:
 TA>>>>>> The stock market prices hit $54.77 per barrow of crude
 TA>>>>>> today and its expected to continue to increase to ???

 JB>>>>> Crude oil isn't traded in the stock markets.  It's traded in
 JB>>>>> the futures and commodities markets.

 TA>>>> Thanks Jeff. I heard the citation on the evening NPR-Business
 TA>>>> Report as the cause of the stock market tanking. I hope I

 SH>>> When did the stock market tank?

 EH>> 1929

 JH>>Most people think that is when the Depression started, and I used 
 JH>>to be one of them.  But, I was reading a book that showed that the 
 JH>>crash of 29, while bad, wasn't nearly as bad as most people think 
 JH>>and had it not been for the screwed up policies of FDR and his 
 JH>>predecessor, we likely wouldn't have had a depression at all.


 TR> Herbert Hoover was FDR's predecessor. I remember Hoover when I was 
 TR> young. He only died sometime in the mid-sixties.


 TR> I'm not sure Hoover had much, if anything, to do with the Great 
 TR> Depression. Mostly, it was practices that probably couldn't be used today.
 TR> Although some strange things happen in the stock market now and again. For
 TR> instance, Hillary Clinton making in excess of $100,000 in the commodities 
 TR> market for an initial investment of about $8000, which wasn't even her 
 TR> money, but `put up' by someone else `for' her.

Oh, Hoover was actually more responsible than FDR.  Hoover is known as the "do
nothing President" but he was anything but.  For example:  The month after the
crash in '29, he summoned national business leaders to the WH and convinced
them not to lower wages, saying that workers would be able to continue to buy
goods and keep the economy going - based on the myth of "underconsumption."  At
a time when prices were rapidly declining, keeping wages high forced businesses
to lay off workers.  The result was mass unemployment.  Another example: 
Hoover kept agricultural prices high by subsidizing farmers, allowing them to
keep producing surplus crops, while prices remained abnormally high.  The govt
ended up having to buy most of that surplus at inflated rates (and most of it
simply rotted in silos) which kept it off the world market, creating shortages.
 When European farmers dropped their prices lower and stepped in to fill the
gap, the bottom fell out, bankrupting thousands of farmers and adding further
to the unemployment problems.  The govt even went so far as to order plowing
under millions of acres in an effort to stabilize the market and get rid of the
surplus.  Third biggie:  Hoover got Congress to pass the Revenue Act of 1932,
which levied taxes on just about everything in sight.  That was the straw that
broke the donkey's back.  What was a bad, but recoverable recession was thrown
into a full blown, world-wide depression.

That is what FDR inheritated when he took office after the 1932 election. 
Rexford Tugwell, an important figure in the New Deal programs, is quoted as
saying: "We didn't admit it at the time, but practilly the whole New Deal was
extrapolated from programs that Hoover started."  Hoover was driving the truck,
running it nearly out of control; but FDR drove it off the cliff and finished
the job.


John 

America:  First, Last, and Always!
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 * Origin:  (1:379/1.99)