ICONS

2/13/2010 12:47:27 AM

FDR
Before Congress, his Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, made this statement, "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work."

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

From 1930 to 1940 federal spending TRIPLES. As a percentage of GDP it rose from 3.4% in 1930 to 9.8% in 1940. In 1930 unemployment was at 2.8 million and in 1940, 6.9 million.

Henry Morgenthau also said before Congress, â€œI say that after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we startedâ€¦and an enormous debt to boot.â€

WWII saved us from further FDR â€œhelpâ€.

JFK

In early 1963 with unemployment over 7%, JFK said to Congress, â€œThe largest single barrier to full employment of our manpower and resources and to a higher rate of growth is the unrealistically heavy drag of federal income taxes on private purchasing power, initiative, and incentive.â€ He reduced the top tax rate from 91% (NINETY-ONE PERCENT!!!) to 70%. Unemployment drops to below 5%. Percentage of GDP spending drops sharply and the economy, well it grows 42% (FORTY-TWO PERCENT) between 1961 and 1968.

36 comments

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Dudester

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15 years ago

I was a Constitutional Law Major (English minor), so econ isn't my thing, but history has taught that we thrive when govt. hands are off business.

rob0411

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15 years ago

BFD and so what! There are blogs to discuss economics, government policy and politics in general. Go there and leave the strip club blogs to strip club discussions.

zeke

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15 years ago

FDR did not spend enough.

In addition to a war, WW II can also be thought of as a giant economic stimulus.

jabthehut

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15 years ago

rob0411,
The economy has every thing to do with strip clubs and their patrons. Many SCs are in bad shape now as patrons are fewer and those that do go are spending less money. One strip club in my area has gone out-of-business in the past couple of years and the other one just doesn't have the customers fi it weren't for the bar they would probably shut down.
My ATF called me about an hour ago (10 pm) and said there were 13 dancers and 8 patrons and she had a total of $1 after paying her club fee and paying for the jukebox. Others hadn't even made their fee.
Thing is, if we had more money to spend we would. There is the relevence.
Thanks Clubber for the insightful info.

babehunter90

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15 years ago

jabthehut's right, strip clubs are excellent economic indicators.

MajorBoobage

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15 years ago

I agree entirely with rob0411, but that said, the problem with the theories espoused here is that there's no indicator of causality. In other words, you haven't demonstrated that FDR's public spending caused higher unemployment -- it may well be the case that without public works projects, unemployment would have been even higher than 6.9 million in 1940. (Besides, unemployment rate is a much more relevant gauge of economic health than the hard numbers.) Similarly, it's not necessarily the case that JFK lowering income taxes caused unemployment to drop; it's entirely possible that declining unemployment created a rise in income tax revenue, allowing the government to drop the rate. So if you're going to insist on derailing the talk about boobies, at least have a point worth sharing.