Archive for August 23rd, 2010

Obama and FDR


Monday August 23rd, 2010   •   Posted by William Shughart at 5:53am PDT   •   0 Comments

In March 1933, when the Great Depression had driven the U.S. economy to rock bottom, the unemployment rate stood at 25 percent. One out of every four Americans who had had a job in 1929 was queuing in a bread line rather than working on an assembly line. The unemployment rate remained at historically…
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Why Less Government Spending Would Mean Less Economic Trouble


Monday August 23rd, 2010   •   Posted by Robert Higgs at 5:51am PDT   •   2 Comments

Many economists say deficit spending is crucial to keeping the economy moving. But history tells a different story. ————— Though our current economic troubles are complex, many mainstream economists have endorsed the simplistic Keynesian theory that massive government spending will produce jobs and prosperity. From such Keynesian thinking have flowed the �stimulus� and bailout…
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The G-20: Has Everyone Lost It?


Monday August 23rd, 2010   •   Posted by Alvaro Vargas Llosa at 5:50am PDT   •   0 Comments

WASHINGTON�The governments, institutions, and personalities who should be providing guidance in the aftermath of the financial and economic debacle of 2007�08 are still recommending the very policies that got us here in the first place. The G-20 summit in Toronto exposed this truth quite poignantly. Before and during the sessions, President Obama urged nations…
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Foreign Lenders: Friends Indeed to a U.S. Treasury in Need


Monday August 23rd, 2010   •   Posted by Robert Higgs at 5:46am PDT   •   0 Comments

When the U.S. government wishes to spend more money than it receives as tax revenue, it covers the shortfall by borrowing, and foreign lenders have become increasingly important sources of such borrowed funds.

Reliance on foreign lenders is as old as the republic. Indeed, loans from the French and the Dutch proved critical in keeping the American revolutionaries afloat while they broke from the British Empire and established their independence. Later, the huge foreign debt became a major reason for the new national government�s assumption of the states� war debts and for the creation of the First Bank of the United States and other measures Alexander Hamilton devised to establish the new government�s credit.

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