No New Deal/WWII, how long until US recover from Great Depression

So why is it, that if we have more food than we need, we have not yet ended world hunger? The reason is simple, because it's not profitable for a small elite of useless parasites to actually help people.

So much for Marxist Theory, with the Central Planning inherent with it, starved far more people than Capitalism dreamed possible

Or it's just too expensive to send Cheeseburgers that sat in the bins too long over to Africa.
Communism makes sure that only the Elite would have access to Cheeseburgers, while the Proles get Black Bread and thin Soup.
 

QueerSpear

Banned
So much for Marxist Theory, with the Central Planning inherent with it, starved far more people than Capitalism dreamed possible

I am not a Marxist nor do I a support a state-controlled economy- I am a libertarian.

Or it's just too expensive to send Cheeseburgers that sat in the bins too long over to Africa.

You mean the same Africa where the glories of capitalism has resulted in millions of people- including children and eldery- to become emaciated? Or India where the glories of capitalism has resulted in more than 200 million people suffering from malnutrition?

Communism makes sure that only the Elite would have access to Cheeseburgers, while the Proles get Black Bread and thin Soup.

See above.
 

thorr97

Banned
QueerSpear,

Capitalism is, has always been and always will be an inefficient, overbloate and autocratic system that goes against human nature and is incapable of providing basic decency. It's an archaic system based on archaic presumptions about human nature and technology and has long outlived its usefulness.

And yet it has been capitalism which has led to famine now being a matter of political choice and not an inevitable fact of life.

In pursuit of ever more agricultural efficiency at producing more crops on a given amount of land and for a given amount of farm labor exerted, those oh-so-greedy capitalists have come up with ways where but mere handfuls of farmers can feed millions and billions of people worldwide. Thanks to that "inefficient, overbloated, and autocratic system" it is cheaper, easier, and faster to ship produce - i.e. perishable fruits and vegetables - from half way across the world to ensure their being continuously available no matter whether they're in season locally or could even be grown locally.

No government program has ever achieved such results. No political system has achieved such results. No other economic system has achieved such results.

But hey, there's The Narrative to keep pushing. So...
 

RousseauX

Donor
I am not a Marxist nor do I a support a state-controlled economy- I am a libertarian.



You mean the same Africa where the glories of capitalism has resulted in millions of people- including children and eldery- to become emaciated? Or India where the glories of capitalism has resulted in more than 200 million people suffering from malnutrition?



See above.
Free trade and capitalism has greatly improved the average living standards in India and Africa over the last 30 years.

People have always being starving in Africa and India even before colonialism: capitalism made a lot less people starve as percentage of population
 
No government program has ever achieved such results.
In point of fact, the Green Revolution--which increased crop yields more than probably any other single program in history--was substantially funded and supported by the governments of its beneficiary states (Mexico, Pakistan, India, China (during the Maoist years, natch), the Philippines, and so on and so forth), in addition to funding from private charitable foundations such as the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations. This was most certainly a "government program," or at a minimum substantially dependent on the government not merely allowing the work but actively supporting and promoting it.
 

QueerSpear

Banned
QueerSpear,

And yet it has been capitalism which has led to famine now being a matter of political choice and not an inevitable fact of life.

In pursuit of ever more agricultural efficiency at producing more crops on a given amount of land and for a given amount of farm labor exerted, those oh-so-greedy capitalists have come up with ways where but mere handfuls of farmers can feed millions and billions of people worldwide. Thanks to that "inefficient, overbloated, and autocratic system" it is cheaper, easier, and faster to ship produce - i.e. perishable fruits and vegetables - from half way across the world to ensure their being continuously available no matter whether they're in season locally or could even be grown locally.

No government program has ever achieved such results. No political system has achieved such results. No other economic system has achieved such results.

But hey, there's The Narrative to keep pushing. So...

Again we produced enough food to feed 10 billion people, and yet world hunger is still not resolved and will not be resolved for decades to come.

And the agricultural efficiency of the last few decades happened because of substantial government funding- the invisible hand didn't do the Green Revolution, government dollars were the ones that did.
 
View attachment 346478

Hoover was a non-interventionist and did nothing to aliviate the economy, being a firm believer in "rugged individualism" and the mythological free enterprise, thus allowing thousands of businesses to go bankrupt and millions to lose their jobs.

If Coolidge had run, he would have made no difference. Both Coolidge and Hoover were free market fundamentalists who supported high tariffs.

QueerSpear,
You are incorrect. Hoover was a progressive and very interventionist. After the Crash, Secretary Mellon advised him to let things be. Let the market liquidate things. Hoover intervened. He pressured industry to maintain wages and production in an uncertain climate. This, combined with bad policy from the Fed, turned a financial crisis into a general one. He signed Smoot-Hawley which killed trade. He spent a lot on relief programs. Much of the initial new Deal was merely an expansion over what Hoover had been doing. Finally, he signed the Revenue Act of 1932. This raised the top tax rate from 25% to 63%. This really tanked the economy.

Please note, there was a very sharp contraction in 1920-1921. Wilson basically did nothing. Harding cut spending and raised interest rates. Inflation was a concern. The economy recovered in 1921 and was booming afterwards.

I blame the Great Depression on Hoover but he is mischaracterized. If Coolidge had run for reelection, the economy would have been rough in 29-30 but would have recovered well before 1932.
 
Companies, not having consumer spending as a driver since the Depression, got a lot of war orders
Unemployment dropped
wages rose
workers(including women filling in for the men) didn't have goods to spend that money one, so saved in Banks and bought Bonds, restoring the Financial markets
One thing I've never understood. If the New Deal prolonged the Depression, how did WW2, which was even more restrictions on the economy and more government spending, end it?
Faelin,
There was a lot of concern that the Depression would resume after the War. Please note that it wasn't New Deal spending that hurt the economy. It was taxes and regulations. FDR relaxed some of the regulations to help with the military buildup. We put 16 million people in uniform. This created a civilian labor shortage, pushing up wages. There was also rationing so there wasn't much to spend the money on. This bumped up savings. After the war, there was a big tax cut on corporations which helped the economy in the late 40's and 50s.
 

Iron Sun

Banned
You are incorrect. Hoover was a progressive and very interventionist. After the Crash, Secretary Mellon advised him to let things be. Let the market liquidate things. Hoover intervened. He pressured industry to maintain wages and production in an uncertain climate. This, combined with bad policy from the Fed, turned a financial crisis into a general one. He signed Smoot-Hawley which killed trade. He spent a lot on relief programs. Much of the initial new Deal was merely an expansion over what Hoover had been doing. Finally, he signed the Revenue Act of 1932. This raised the top tax rate from 25% to 63%. This really tanked the economy.
wikipedian_protester.png
 

RousseauX

Donor
Again we produced enough food to feed 10 billion people, and yet world hunger is still not resolved and will not be resolved for decades to come.
The reason for that is less capitalism and more political instability: governments in the west have programs such as food stamps to give food for free to hungry people. Even in Africa you get big time western food aid, but the problem is a lot of governments are not stable enough for aid workers to go to, or perpetuate hunger for its own ends (see the derg in ethopia). The issue is less with economic models as it is with incompetent or unstable governments.
 

RousseauX

Donor
Faelin,
There was a lot of concern that the Depression would resume after the War. Please note that it wasn't New Deal spending that hurt the economy. It was taxes and regulations. FDR relaxed some of the regulations to help with the military buildup. We put 16 million people in uniform. This created a civilian labor shortage, pushing up wages. There was also rationing so there wasn't much to spend the money on. This bumped up savings. After the war, there was a big tax cut on corporations which helped the economy in the late 40's and 50s.
@daveg1967 #fakestats

effective corporate tax rates were 50% in the 1950s, it's 16% today. source:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpo...Effective_Corporate_Tax_Rate_1947-2011_v2.jpg
 
@daveg1967 #fakestats

effective corporate tax rates were 50% in the 1950s, it's 16% today. source:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpo...Effective_Corporate_Tax_Rate_1947-2011_v2.jpg
RousseauX what do today's rates have to do with the question? What matters is what they were before the period in question.

The United States Revenue Act of 1945, Public Law 214, 59 Stat. 556 (Nov. 8, 1945), repealed the excess profits tax, reduced individual income tax rates (the top rate fell from 94 percent to 86.45 percent), and reduced corporate tax rates (the top rate dropped from 40 percent to 38 percent).[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenue_Act_of_1945

The United States Revenue Act of 1948 reduced individual income tax rates 5-13 percent,
 

RousseauX

Donor
RousseauX what do today's rates have to do with the question? What matters is what they were before the period in question.

The United States Revenue Act of 1945, Public Law 214, 59 Stat. 556 (Nov. 8, 1945), repealed the excess profits tax, reduced individual income tax rates (the top rate fell from 94 percent to 86.45 percent), and reduced corporate tax rates (the top rate dropped from 40 percent to 38 percent).[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenue_Act_of_1945

The United States Revenue Act of 1948 reduced individual income tax rates 5-13 percent,
effective corporate tax rates:

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/site.../content/PDF/corporate_historical_bracket.pdf

top rate in 1928: 12%
top rate in 1938 19%
top rate in 1945: 40%
top rate in 1955: 52%

rates were higher in 1945-47 than during 1930s

effective rates graph: go way up after 1947 peaking in early 50s:

MGgcdWs.png


Economic boom was accompanied by ever higher corporate tax rates, not lower rates
 
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thorr97

Banned
QueerSpear,

Again we produced enough food to feed 10 billion people, and yet world hunger is still not resolved and will not be resolved for decades to come.

And the agricultural efficiency of the last few decades happened because of substantial government funding- the invisible hand didn't do the Green Revolution, government dollars were the ones that did.

What part of "political choice" did you miss about famines today?

Yes, government funding was essential - but it wasn't governments which grew all those crops. Instead, it was private individuals - the farmers and farming companies - which grew them seeking to make a profit doing so.

So, famine / food shortages today is a matter of political choice interfering with the overwhelming bounty of food provided by the free market / capitalism.

And it wasn't government run farms which made that Green Revolution actually happen.

So, Capitalism for the Win! Again!
 
effective corporate tax rates:

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/site.../content/PDF/corporate_historical_bracket.pdf

top rate in 1928: 12%
top rate in 1938 19%
top rate in 1945: 40%
top rate in 1955: 52%

rates were higher in 1945-47 than during 1930s

effective rates graph: go way up after 1947 peaking in early 50s:

MGgcdWs.png


Economic boom was accompanied by ever higher corporate tax rates, not lower rates
Rousseaux,
You are not counting the excess profits tax. Top corporate tax rate during WW2 was either 90 or 95%. These went away after the war. They increased taxes during the Korean War. These went away in 1953. Please note that during the roaring boom of the 1950s there were three recessions in 10 years.
 

thorr97

Banned
daveg1967,

You are not counting the excess profits tax. Top corporate tax rate during WW2 was either 90 or 95%. These went away after the war. They increased taxes during the Korean War. These went away in 1953. Please note that during the roaring boom of the 1950s there were three recessions in 10 years.

Also, as I understand it, there was the officially stated tax rate - which no one actually paid. Thanks to all the profusion of exemptions and loopholes, that full rate was rarely - if ever - paid by any individual or company. And the lower rates later on saw those loopholes and exemptions closed out so that the revenues generated actually increased.
 
daveg1967,



Also, as I understand it, there was the officially stated tax rate - which no one actually paid. Thanks to all the profusion of exemptions and loopholes, that full rate was rarely - if ever - paid by any individual or company. And the lower rates later on saw those loopholes and exemptions closed out so that the revenues generated actually increased.
This is where you get the data that show at a low enough rate, its more rewarding to maximize profit and pay the tax than pay the accountants and manage for tax avoidance.
 
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