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Saturday, June 25, 2011

Is GOP setting us up for 1937 replay?

The Great Depression began in 1929 and continued through most of 1941. By 1937, production, profits and wages had returned to 1929 levels, but unemployment remained high at more than 14 percent, though this was a considerable improvement over the 25 percent level seen in 1933.

In mid-1937, things went seriously south. From then through most of 1938, production declined sharply and unemployment rocketed to 19 percent. Wikipedia says,
The Recession of 1937–1938 was a temporary reversal of the pre-war 1933 to 1941 economic recovery from the Great Depression in the United States. Economists disagree about the causes of this downturn. Keynesian economists tend to assign blame to cuts in Federal spending and increases in taxes at the insistence of the US Treasury, while monetarists, most notably Milton Friedman tended to assign blame to the Federal Reserve's tightening of the money supply in 1936 and 1937.
Comes now one Cullen Roche of "Pragmatic Capitalism," who says that the GOP's economic recovery plan will lead to a repeat of 1937. See what you think.



Who is right? I am reminded of Harry Truman's desire to meet a one-armed economist who could never say, "On the other hand . . ."


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