After the great depression a revolt had managed to install a new goverment in the United states

It doesn't really matter what "should" happen, just what is... politicians tell lies or half truths to get people to vote for them, then they have years and a free hand if they get enough support, or have to make bargains if they don't, without the interference by the mob who generally know less and care even less... Don't have to even be a liar, just extremely charismatic and inspirational (like Obama).

If you got a better idea, let's hear it

I was just trying to figure out what your line of thought was on that. I think it's better to give a bit more control to the voters, you seem to think we are better off with some kind of professionally installed king and his professional advisers. Many people died for the more free and open system we have today. The price is every once and a while the public makes a mistake. At lest if a mistake is made they would have had a freedom of choice than one person or a small group of people making those choices for them and greatly limiting or getting rid of the public in the process all together.

Sorry, Nixon shock happened 40 years ago, and the world today is generally far more technologically and economically advanced than 40 years ago, and also more peaceful. Going to have to do better than that.

If we are talking about the Great Depression only, it's a whole other issue... your proposals don't really address the root causes of the Great Depression or Roaring Twenties. Hint, tight money and tight control made the situation far, far worse... Ben Bernanke Man of the Year saved us in 2008.

And now we are in endless Q.E and talking about world wide sub zero interest rates. But to address the Great Depression as this is what this is about, I think the proposals did address some of them. I could include things like no margin on stocks, but I think that is nearly a given based on what has happened in this ATL. There are some who argue that fiat currency and government spending made the situation worse in the great depression. I also question the choices Ben Bernanke made in 2008. I would have just given the 7 trillion to the people with deposits at risk than blow it on Q.E and eating there toxic sub-prime trash loans. The part you don't say is that the fed dumping tons of loose money likely is what pumped the bubble so high in the roaring twenties. So in effect the fed made the great depression worse by pumping it up pre-1929 and then made it worse after word maybe hoping to get rid of gold backed bills.

"The Federal Reserve believes it is possible that, ultimately, its operating framework will allow the elimination of minimum reserve requirements, which impose costs and distortions on the banking system." - The man of the year in 2008. Link: https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/testimony/bernanke20100210a.htm#fn9

He should be called the man who was lucky and then decided to push the end of the system once the house of cards falls. If I needed I can explain why this is a flawed idea that he pushed and any real expert in the field would have never dared to suggest what he did as a goal.

You haven't addressed how an economy would work without banks making loans to businesses, which is NOT about starting new business but making payroll and meeting operating costs. Timing, everything is about timing.

If a business can't make payroll with out a loan then it's most likely going to fail. But this was a clear oversight on my part so I will rewrite the OP to include installment loans and other kinds of loans including those for payroll.

I don't have to source anything, you need to source an actual modern government that works by opinion poll. Note that these governments are generally from BCE, when the definition of citizen was so restrictive and people had so much free time to participate in votes about mundane budgetary issues.

Really this system isn't that much different than what we have. In local elections many low level things are voted on like for the many departments in town that aren't too much unlike what is seen at the federal level.

The EPA is a special case because you can't reverse environmental damage (or can at great cost). Someone dumps some toxic waste, can't sue your way to fix the ground water. Environment is generally the exception to the rule to heavy regulation.

You can't reverse someone killing themselves because they lost everything there Job, housing and money because some bankers were stupid. You can't sue that person back to life. Most environmental damage can be reversed if given the time and money. There was a whole lot more to the 2008 crash than the 700 or so billion. The real amount it cost is over 7 trillion with fed holding bad paper(Sub-prime home loans), Q.E and a host of other things. I can explain this in more detail if you like. If you didn't know this before Q.E or Quantitative easing even by some very well respected experts has a very questionable impact to economic growth but they do it anyways.

Well libertarianism is generally anti-regulation and pro-free market. Your ideas are more social democratic. Besides, "But this is about the great depression, not 2016 and beyond."

You seem to have a problem with fiat currency.

I would say I do due to the higher risk of hyper inflation and that is much worse than deflation. I said from the first post my ideas are more socialist and hopefully more democratic. The thing I have the biggest issue with though is the federal reserve being mostly under private control and yet is supposed our head of government economist to decide how banks should be handled. You may as well sell off the EPA to big Oil and let big Oil appoint EPA agents or sell the DEA to the drug cartels.

The type of controls you say has its own downsides, massive, slow economic growth... you never addressed the payroll point. It is a fact of business, that most loans have nothing to do with "starting" the business but ongoing cost.

Other obvious downside is moral hazard... if suddenly the bank employees choosing the winners and losers to give loans to are government employees then nepotism and corruption sets in... hello stagnant economy... but you know that...

There is a moral hazard to be had no matter what. There is this kind of corruption in private banks as well and if you think there isn't then I have a bridge to sell. I realize it has downsides such as slower economic growth, but it would likely be a more stable system less prone to out right failure. Though I would have to say the last 8 years GDP wise have been fairly stagnant, but to return to 1930 I know there are downsides but I think they don't out number the upsides. The only dividing line between international businesses and elected officials if they screw the world up one can be voted out, the other can't.
 
At the OP:

What it looks like to me is that you've come up with your own views, based on late 20th century and 21st century experience, of the sort of state and economic regime that ought to exist. Well, so have I. I don't mean to argue with or label your views versus mine--I rather suspect that we might agree on some very broad principles.

But in terms of a 1930 POD, you can't project your views, or were I persuasive enough, mine, on people in the past. I often do believe that certain things that people assume are only possible under some circumstances actually could have traction under other ones and could have happened in the past. But unless you push the POD back well before 1930 to lay the groundwork for a lot of people coming to see things the way you do long before the 1929 Crash, wanting to see a vast spontaneous movement prevail that happens to adopt your own 21st century notions out of a blue sky is just unrealistic. You have to work with the ideological spectrum that was on the ground at the time.

In the early 30s OTL, there were a lot of notions out there. They tended to cancel each other out though because they disagreed in detail and no great movement with a generally agreed upon alternative to business as usual existed. The common ground was that business as usual had failed spectacularly, and it was on this vague consensus that Franklin Roosevelt campaigned and won as promising some sort of "New Deal" that would appeal to all--but he was very careful not to be too specific and he dealt with stuff on an ad hoc basis. This is not because nobody had specific ideas and sweeping programs--it is because there were a great many contradictory specific solutions and sweeping programs many factions championed, and he picked and chose among them to solve specific problems. Often he tried something only to have the Supreme Court rule it was unconstitutional and put him back to square one--until he threatened to raise the number of justices and pack the Court with handpicked judges who would outvote the conservatives--at that point one of the key swing justices changed sides and started supporting New Deal programs.

It is my subjective opinion, based perhaps on too much sentiment and optimism, that the bulk of US opinion in this era was rather vaguely to the left, and populist in the sense that large majorities agreed that the common person had been badly screwed and that any US or state government action had better be to the benefit of the majority. But at the same time relatively few people wanted to see the USA transformed radically along any theoretical lines, what they wanted was quick fixes to make the existing system work for the common person. That said--plenty of people did indeed want to see something radical happen. It is my sense that the far right was poorly organized and had little traction for radical action, largely because the previous order before the Crash was largely skewed in a conservative direction anyway, so that on one hand reactionary solutions also looked like "more of the same old nonsense" while leftist ones looked new and untried and worth a trial. And so it was not so easy to organize a fascist movement with mass traction--on the other hand, a lot of stuff I'd label pretty fascist could be said and done under the guise of mere conservatism. But conservatism was out of style since it had ruled the 1920s and had failed so spectacularly.

OTOH had real hard left radicalism been more popular and organized and unified, probably some kind of effective fascist movement would have been already in place before 1929 as in Germany, to rise to greater power as panicky rich people turned to them.

For either to be in place to take control in 1930, or even to be organized underground in 1930 to take power some years hence, requires the 1920s and even before to have gone differently.

Somewhat. I think in the wake of FDR's very mild cooption of the left and his intelligent reforms along fundamentally conservative lines, we tend today to be blind to just how much left-wing radical tradition Americans were heir to in the early 30s. The idea that some leftist leader could have tied numerous strands together and formed a powerful united movement that ballooned and mushroomed in the wake of the 1929 crisis faster and more thoroughly than right-wing reaction could check it is not alien to me. That the USA might have had a hard-left Socialist/Communist revolution in the early 30s seems entirely possible to me--given somewhat different history earlier in the 20th century.

As things were, in addition to Communists (definitely a rising star among the American working class, though never coming close to a majority in most places) and the Socialists (who might have done better in the early 30s) and traditionally affiliated movements--Farmer/Labor in Minnesota for instance, the LaFollette Progressive Republicans in Wisconsin, Huey Long in Louisiana's "Share the Wealth" campaign, Upton Sinclair's run for the Governorship of California (this movement, believe it or not, caught up none other than Robert Heinlein as a failed Democratic Congressional candidate in Hollywood!) there were loads of other more or less leftist, radical movements. The 19th century notions of Henry George, commonly called "Single-taxism" and pointing to the accrual of market value of land as egregiously unearned wealth that should b heavily taxed not just for revenue but to check undesirable distortions of the market economy had strong revivals. I'm not sure what "Ham and Eggs" in California and elsewhere had as its theoretical foundation but its pragmatic message of enough for the poor was clear enough and quite popular. It really was a time of ferment--what was lacking was direction.

So--believing as you do in the validity of your notions of how the world should be run, perhaps if you make a study of American conditions in the three decades prior to the Crash you can find a niche, even find contemporary thinkers who believed as you do now. Identify them, determine how it is that they were diverted to obscurity despite your retroactive endorsement of their ideas, think on what it might have taken for these people to be more successful and build a base comparable to Henry George or Eugene Debs or the Bolsheviks or Huey Long, position them so that when the Crash happens large numbers of people are plausibly inclined to listen to them and fight for the program. Then you might be able to put some flesh on this skeleton of how you think things ought to have been done, and talk about the concrete movement of real people to actually implement them in this opportunity. At the same time you have to look at their rivals and their likely opposition, and envision how they will prevail. Or how your ideals might be modified by practical considerations of alliance with some of the rivals to arrive at something else that may or may not seem close enough to you.

I would need to reread your post with more patience and care but I will tell you right now, shooting from the hip, that debtor's prison is no way for a post-Crash radical movement to win support. It is not clear to me that as some poster above said debtor's prison is "unconstitutional"--I certainly wish it were, but that's not how it came to be wiped out of America. It was politics pure and simple that eliminated it--Jacksonian Democratic politics, championed by people like Andrew Jackson and like Martin Van Buren of New York, a battle fought in the early 1800s and won by the 1830s. It used to be common enough in the early American states, but it was eliminated by legislation in the same movement that brought about universal (white male) franchise in the North before the Civil War. I fear there may be no Constitutional barrier to absolutely forbid it, but any movement proposing to bring it back brands themselves as more reactionary even than advocates of slavery. At any rate, whatever godawful things are possible today (when after all a Nevada state assemblyman has recently, in the past few years, said he'd vote for slavery if his constituents were for it) in the 1930s I'm pretty sure even the southern Citizens Councils or Ku Klux Klan would not publicly and openly advocate debt imprisonment--not for white people anyway. It literally would be turning back the clock a hundred years in the 1930s and would be roundly denounced by most people. Only as part of a military dictatorship could I envision such a thing and it would be something very risky and probably completely unnecessary for even the likes of Douglas MacArthur to contemplate, let alone impose.
 
Sorry this will be my last post we will have to agree to disagree

I was just trying to figure out what your line of thought was on that. I think it's better to give a bit more control to the voters, you seem to think we are better off with some kind of professionally installed king and his professional advisers. Many people died for the more free and open system we have today. The price is every once and a while the public makes a mistake. At lest if a mistake is made they would have had a freedom of choice than one person or a small group of people making those choices for them and greatly limiting or getting rid of the public in the process all together.

No, because voters in an advanced economy don't have the time or patience to take part in line-by-line budget votes. Even the President doesn't have a line-item veto.

That's because there's deal making and unpopular but necessary decisions, that get attached to necessary spending. Unless your system accounts for that, then only what's popular will get done, and what's unpopular will be ignored -- leading to destruction and destitution in the long run.

And now we are in endless Q.E and talking about world wide sub zero interest rates. But to address the Great Depression as this is what this is about, I think the proposals did address some of them. I could include things like no margin on stocks, but I think that is nearly a given based on what has happened in this ATL. There are some who argue that fiat currency and government spending made the situation worse in the great depression. I also question the choices Ben Bernanke made in 2008. I would have just given the 7 trillion to the people with deposits at risk than blow it on Q.E and eating there toxic sub-prime trash loans. The part you don't say is that the fed dumping tons of loose money likely is what pumped the bubble so high in the roaring twenties. So in effect the fed made the great depression worse by pumping it up pre-1929 and then made it worse after word maybe hoping to get rid of gold backed bills.

"The Federal Reserve believes it is possible that, ultimately, its operating framework will allow the elimination of minimum reserve requirements, which impose costs and distortions on the banking system." - The man of the year in 2008. Link: https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/testimony/bernanke20100210a.htm#fn9

He should be called the man who was lucky and then decided to push the end of the system once the house of cards falls. If I needed I can explain why this is a flawed idea that he pushed and any real expert in the field would have never dared to suggest what he did as a goal.

Sorry, don't buy it. Great Depression was caused by tight money, banks locking up, no money for new investment end of story.

hfs_shalom_a.jpg


This man and QE is the REASON there was not a huge depression in 2008 and a fast rebound. This man prepared all his life to take down another Great Depression. This man is an American and worldwide hero, even if people don't acknowledge it. Tight money = zero economy, it's just that simple.

EDIT: Again a pet peeve of mine,

TIME said:
But the main reason Ben Shalom Bernanke is TIME's Person of the Year for 2009 is that he is the most important player guiding the world's most important economy. His creative leadership helped ensure that 2009 was a period of weak recovery rather than catastrophic depression, and he still wields unrivaled power over our money, our jobs, our savings and our national future.

Ben Bernanke, a true hero in every sense of the word, because things could have been ten thousand times worse. Hopefully next great recession a man like him is around and NOT a libertarian or money tightener.

If a business can't make payroll with out a loan then it's most likely going to fail. But this was a clear oversight on my part so I will rewrite the OP to include installment loans and other kinds of loans including those for payroll.

Sorry, this is wrong. Most business have revolving accounts.

Basically loans are crucial to the functioning of business, end of story.

Really this system isn't that much different than what we have. In local elections many low level things are voted on like for the many departments in town that aren't too much unlike what is seen at the federal level.

One word -- corruption.

Look at the Soviets (council, not the USSR) and you can see the weakness. In a winner-takes-all-gets-to-do-what-he-wants-for-four-years type that Western democracies have, there is a clear cut chopping off of the head and no room for a "strongman" to sit at top and become a dictator.

You can't reverse someone killing themselves because they lost everything there Job, housing and money because some bankers were stupid. You can't sue that person back to life. Most environmental damage can be reversed if given the time and money. There was a whole lot more to the 2008 crash than the 700 or so billion. The real amount it cost is over 7 trillion with fed holding bad paper(Sub-prime home loans), Q.E and a host of other things. I can explain this in more detail if you like. If you didn't know this before Q.E or Quantitative easing even by some very well respected experts has a very questionable impact to economic growth but they do it anyways.

I am not worried about bankers. You shouldn't be either. They are a symptom of an advanced economy. The more advanced the economy, the more financial services and business services it has.

I realize that this seems to people like you as a "scam" or not real economy. I'm also pretty blue collar too and I don't particularly like the fact. But I accept it. Moving money around and finding the next big hit is what capitalism is about.

I would say I do due to the higher risk of hyper inflation and that is much worse than deflation. I said from the first post my ideas are more socialist and hopefully more democratic. The thing I have the biggest issue with though is the federal reserve being mostly under private control and yet is supposed our head of government economist to decide how banks should be handled. You may as well sell off the EPA to big Oil and let big Oil appoint EPA agents or sell the DEA to the drug cartels.

Hyper inflation is NOT worse than deflation. Let's play this game.

First, it's not a reality. Despite the attempts of QE to increase inflation, everyone just hoards money. If you have a secret of increasing inflation you should call the Fed for a job because they have been trying to introduce it for years.

Second, hyper inflation what's the worst that can happen? Savings are decimated, you have to spend the money before it depreciates. No problem. You can always spend money faster. The whole point of existence of money is to spend it. You want to save, you can always buy collateral like gold. There's no point confusing the purpose of gold and money. The working class works, they make money, they spend it all immediately. That is the worst that can happen, the absolute worst, and it's not so bad for the working class (they can always buy gold or something else to save). Pretty bad for those with hoards of cash as they are forced to spend it.

In deflation, the rich can SIT on their money and HOARD it, and meanwhile get VALUE for hoarding their money. Meanwhile those without money, are screwed because money is so tight nobody will loan them money to do anything meaningful. Why loan money when the money will automatically increase in value a few percent? Why risk your neck on new business or loans?

Even when rigging the game (comparing hyper inflation with deflation rather than hyper deflation), inflation wins.

There is a moral hazard to be had no matter what. There is this kind of corruption in private banks as well and if you think there isn't then I have a bridge to sell. I realize it has downsides such as slower economic growth, but it would likely be a more stable system less prone to out right failure. Though I would have to say the last 8 years GDP wise have been fairly stagnant, but to return to 1930 I know there are downsides but I think they don't out number the upsides. The only dividing line between international businesses and elected officials if they screw the world up one can be voted out, the other can't.

You can go back to the 1930's where 25% of the people in the country were STARVING. The 30's are an absolutely terrible decade for almost everyone except for robber barons.

I think the point is made... if it isn't then I suggest you find examples of your utopia. You won't find any... yes, it's all a house of cards, but the cards are made of steel... it may irk you that everything is about loans and futures and options and the "information economy" but that's what it is because that's what people consume. The days of manufacturing and or unions are over.
 
Last edited:
This man and QE is the REASON there was not a huge depression in 2008 and a fast rebound. This man prepared all his life to take down another Great Depression. This man is an American and worldwide hero, even if people don't acknowledge it. Tight money = zero economy, it's just that simple.

Why QE is only for the rich: http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/05/obvious-reason-qe-doesnt-work.html

Ben Bernanke, a true hero in every sense of the word, because things could have been ten thousand times worse. Hopefully next great recession a man like him is around and NOT a libertarian or money tightener.

So you know how bad it could have been and yet your placing all your faith in one person making all the right choices the next time this happens. Sounds like a plan for failure. Also you didn't address my point on what he pushed for because you insist he is the best thing to ever happen just like Greenspan was during his time. The times also said Trump was the man of the year and there are many that would disagree with that choice. (I only bring up Trump because of your first claim that Government by opinion poll doesn't work because he was elected.)

I am not worried about bankers. You shouldn't be either. They are a symptom of an advanced economy. The more advanced the economy, the more financial services and business services it has.

I realize that this seems to people like you as a "scam" or not real economy. I'm also pretty blue collar too and I don't particularly like the fact. But I accept it. Moving money around and finding the next big hit is what capitalism is about.

Again you know 2008 could have been the end of the system and made the great depression look like a cake walk but you don't think that is something to worry about. I don't think any amount of logic will convince you. It is the real economy and that is why none of it is a game. Because none of it is a game and it is currently part of the real economy is why I worry about it.

Hyper inflation is NOT worse than deflation. Let's play this game.

First, it's not a reality. Despite the attempts of QE to increase inflation, everyone just hoards money. If you have a secret of increasing inflation you should call the Fed for a job because they have been trying to introduce it for years.

Second, hyper inflation what's the worst that can happen? Savings are decimated, you have to spend the money before it depreciates. No problem. You can always spend money faster. The whole point of existence of money is to spend it. You want to save, you can always buy collateral like gold. There's no point confusing the purpose of gold and money. The working class works, they make money, they spend it all immediately. That is the worst that can happen, the absolute worst, and it's not so bad for the working class (they can always buy gold or something else to save). Pretty bad for those with hoards of cash as they are forced to spend it.

In deflation, the rich can SIT on their money and HOARD it, and meanwhile get VALUE for hoarding their money. Meanwhile those without money, are screwed because money is so tight nobody will loan them money to do anything meaningful. Why loan money when the money will automatically increase in value a few percent? Why risk your neck on new business or loans?

Even when rigging the game (comparing hyper inflation with deflation rather than hyper deflation), inflation wins.

I know how you could increase inflation, you could print up $1 trillion USD for each person and sent it to every person here. Q.E is about lining the elites pockets nothing more.

But I will play this game. Lets go to the real world on Hyper inflation:

1) Hyper inflation ruined Germany after world war 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_the_Weimar_Republic

2) A much more modern case: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...la-inflation-rocketing-to-720-percent-in-2016

2A) The fun of Hyper inflation http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-...ns-resort-weighing-cash-hyperinflation-builds

So can you find a really damaging case of deflation, I am betting not because: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/monetary-endgame-score-date-hyperinflations-56-hyperdeflations-0

Also how is Deflation always bad? It means cheaper goods and for a mostly import nation that doesn't make much anymore because those days are dead. It means the money workers are paid with can buy more goods and really I haven't seen a real world case that proves the likes of the Fed chairs including your hero that they are right about Deflation issues. I am sure Hyper Deflation would be bad, but with fiat currency it isn't hard to just print some more and just give it to the workers if you want to really induce inflation. Unless you think the working class will just stuff it all under there beds that is and I really doubt that would happen.

Links that support the counter argument on Deflation:

1) https://mises.org/library/deflating-deflation-myth

2) http://business.financialpost.com/fp-comment/the-deflation-myth

3) https://americaovercomes.wordpress.com/2014/03/12/the-inflation-myth/


You won't find any... yes, it's all a house of cards, but the cards are made of steel... it may irk you that everything is about loans and futures and options and the "information economy" but that's what it is because that's what people consume. The days of manufacturing and or unions are over.

Futures and stock options don't worry me in fact I love watching them and even have traded them. The cards are made out of glass and why 2008 didn't prove this to you I don't know. Many people lost so much then, that is what my irk is. I don't take an issue with the information economy, but I do take an issue with the kind of risk banks take with mortgage backed securities. Yes the days of manufacturing are coming close to an end and unions are not needed as before but may I ask you if in the next 4 years the bank you use does a bail in and takes all of your money, then you lose your job because the stock market crashed thanks to the worlds largest banks going belly up because they traded in complex financial interments known as CDO's that are on a margin of 140 to 1. Will you be here defending the banks as nothing to worry about?

If you are then at lest you stick what you believe.

Edit: Also if the cards are made of steel why are interest rates still at historic lows? Why aren't they back to %4-5 and why is GDP growth so low?

I think with respect you are a little over your head in trying to understand and make your case on this issue.

You can go back to the 1930's where 25% of the people in the country were STARVING. The 30's are an absolutely terrible decade for almost everyone except for robber barons.

I didn't mean that I thought 1930 was better. I was trying to say to go back to the issue of 1930/the great depression. I am sorry I wasn't clear on that. Because of our more socialist system we don't have %25 of the people starving, but I bet if food stamps didn't exist like they didn't in 1930 then there would have been more than %25 of people starving in 2008.

To go back to the issue of the Great depression that started in 1929, I know my ideas have holes but it seems like dismissing the whole thing off hand sounds to me like you have an issue with people questioning how the system works. That is fine though as everyone has there own views and I guess I will now agree to disagree with you.
 
Last edited:
Top