Franklin Roosevelt saved Democracy and Capitalism --- his leadership kept America from falling to either Communist revolutionaries or Fascist revolutionaries during the Great Depression  --- and he led us to victory over the Fascists in Germany. Italy and Japan - who were hell-bent on snuffing out Democracy and Free-Market Capitalism - in World War II.

He inspired confidence by his perpetual optimism and his ability to calmly deal with every crisis that was thrown at him during his life and his presidency.

Quoted from DemocraticVoiceOfReason

Franklin Roosevelt saved Democracy and Capitalism --- his leadership kept America from falling to either Communist revolutionaries or Fascist revolutionaries during the Great Depression  --- and he led us to victory over the Fascists in Germany. Italy and Japan - who were hell-bent on snuffing out Democracy and Free-Market Capitalism - in World War II.

That's the nice clean version, but not reality.  

Quoted Text

There's no doubt that Roosevelt changed the character of the American government--for the worse. Many of the reforms of the 1930s remain embedded in policy today: acreage allotments, price supports and marketing controls in agriculture, extensive regulation of private securities, federal intrusion into union-management relations, government lending and insurance activities, the minimum wage, national unemployment insurance, Social Security and welfare payments, production and sale of electrical power by the federal government, fiat money--the list goes on.

Roosevelt's revolution began with his inaugural address, which left no doubt about his intentions to seize the moment and harness it to his purposes. Best remembered for its patently false line that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself," it also called for extraordinary emergency governmental powers.

The day after FDR took the oath of office, he issued a proclamation calling Congress into a special session. Before it met, he proclaimed a national banking holiday--an action he had refused to endorse when Hoover suggested it three days earlier.

Invoking the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, Roosevelt declared that "all banking transactions shall be suspended." Banks were permitted to reopen only after case-by-case inspection and approval by the government, a procedure that dragged on for months. This action heightened the public's sense of crisis and allowed him to ignore traditional restraints on the power of the central government.

In their understanding of the Depression, Roosevelt and his economic advisers had cause and effect reversed. They did not recognize that prices had fallen because of the Depression. They believed that the Depression prevailed because prices had fallen. The obvious remedy, then, was to raise prices, which they decided to do by creating artificial shortages. Hence arose a collection of crackpot policies designed to cure the Depression by cutting back on production. The scheme was so patently self-defeating that it's hard to believe anyone seriously believed it would work.

The goofiest application of the theory had to do with the price of gold. Starting with the bank holiday and proceeding through a massive gold-buying program, Roosevelt abandoned the gold standard, the bedrock restraint on inflation and government growth. He nationalized the monetary gold stock, forbade the private ownership of gold (except for jewelry, scientific or industrial uses, and foreign payments), and nullified all contractual promises--whether public or private, past or future--to pay in gold.

Besides being theft, gold confiscation didn't work. The price of gold was increased from $20.67 to $35.00 per ounce, a 69% increase, but the domestic price level increased only 7% between 1933 and 1934, and over rest of the decade it hardly increased at all. FDR's devaluation provoked retaliation by other countries, further strangling international trade and throwing the world's economies further into depression.

Having hobbled the banking system and destroyed the gold standard, he turned next to agriculture. Working with the politically influential Farm Bureau and the Bernard Baruch gang, Roosevelt pushed through the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933. It provided for acreage and production controls, restrictive marketing agreements, and regulatory licensing of processors and dealers "to eliminate unfair practices and charges." It authorized new lending, taxed processors of agricultural commodities, and rewarded farmers who cut back production.

The objective was to raise farm commodity prices until they reached a much higher "parity" level. The millions who could hardly feed and clothe their families can be forgiven for questioning the nobility of a program designed to make food and fiber more expensive. Though this was called an "emergency" measure, no President since has seen fit to declare the emergency over.

Industry was virtually nationalized under Roosevelt's National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933. Like most New Deal legislation, this resulted from a compromise of special interests: businessmen seeking higher prices and barriers to competition, labor unionists seeking governmental sponsorship and protection, social workers wanting to control working conditions and forbid child labor, and the proponents of massive spending on public works.

The legislation allowed the President to license businesses or control imports to achieve the vaguely identified objectives of the act. Every industry had to have a code of fair competition. The codes contained provisions setting minimum wages, maximum hours, and "decent" working conditions. The policy rested on the dubious notion that what the country needed most was cartelized business, higher prices, less work, and steep labor costs.

To administer the act, Roosevelt established the National Recovery Administration and named General Hugh Johnson, a crony of Baruch's and a former draft administrator, as head. Johnson adopted the famous Blue Eagle emblem and forced businesses to display it and abide by NRA codes. There were parades, billboards, posters, buttons, and radio ads, all designed to silence those who questioned the policy. Not since the First World War had there been anything like the outpouring of hoopla and coercion. Cutting prices became "chiseling" and the equivalent of treason. The policy was enforced by a vast system of agents and informers.

Eventually the NRA approved 557 basic and 189 supplementary codes, covering about 95% of all industrial employees. Big businessmen dominated the writing and implementing of the documents. They generally aimed to suppress competition. Figuring prominently in this effort were minimum prices, open price schedules, standardization of products and services, and advance notice of intent to change prices. Having gained the government's commitment to stilling competition, the tycoons looked forward to profitable repose.

But the initial enthusiasm evaporated when the NRA did not deliver, and for obvious reasons. Even its corporate boosters began to object to the regimentation it required. By the time the Supreme Court invalidated the whole undertaking in early 1935, most of its former supporters had lost their taste for it.

Striking down the NRA, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes wrote that "extraordinary conditions do not create or enlarge constitutional power." Congress "cannot delegate legislative power to the President to exercise an unfettered discretion to make whatever laws he thinks may be needed."

Despite the decision, the NRA-approach did not disappear completely. Its economic logic reappeared in the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, reinstating union privileges, and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, stipulating regulations for wages and working hours. The Bituminous Coal Act of 1937 reinstated an NRA-type code for the coal industry, including price-fixing. The Works Progress Administration made the government the employer of last resort. Using the Connally Act of 1935, Roosevelt cartelized the oil industry. Eventually, of course, the Supreme Court came around to Roosevelt's way of thinking.

Yet after all this, the grand promise of an end to the suffering was never fulfilled. As the state sector drained the private sector, controlling it in alarming detail, the economy continued to wallow in depression. The combined impact of Herbert Hoover's and Roosevelt's interventions meant that the market was never allowed to correct itself. Far from having gotten us out of the Depression, FDR prolonged and deepened it, and brought unnecessary suffering to millions.

Even more tragic is the lasting legacy of Roosevelt. The commitment of both masses and elites to individualism, free markets, and limited government suffered a blow in the 1930s from which it has yet to recover fully. The theory of the mixed economy is still the dominant ideology backing government policy. In place of old beliefs about liberty, we have greater toleration of, and even positive demand for, collectivist schemes that promise social security, protection from the rigors of market competition, and something for nothing.

The problem with teapartiers/nayboobs is that they deny historical reality ---  

the FACT is that America was in deep depression in early 1930's and there were extremists on BOTH the far left (Communists) and the far right (Fascists) who were gaining popular approval as the nation's economic situation got worse and worse.   Roosevelt's election and the optimism that his decisive New Deal actions engendered gave America hope in a recovery .... and defused the powder keg of revolution that had been lit by the Republican's failure to provide leadership and hope during the Hoover administration.    BTW -- having studied BOTH Herbert Hoover's and Franklin Roosevelt's presidencies extensively -- I believe that it was the Republican Congress  NOT President Hoover that bears the bulk of the blame for the failed efforts to handle the Stock Market Crash and the Great Depression.   ( The truth is that Herbert Hoover was more of a liberal than most people have ever been taught -- so much so that Franklin Roosevelt wanted Hoover to run as a Democrat for president in 1920 .. and Hoover was hated by the  "right-wing"-20's version of the teaparty/nayboobs who ran Congress)

Roosevelt AND the Democratic Congress that was elected in 1932 saved America from revolution -- and for that every truly patriotic, democracy-loving, capitalism-loving American should be grateful.

Quoted from DemocraticVoiceOfReason

"The true conservative seeks to protect the system of private property and free enterprise by correcting such injustices and inequalities as arise from it.
  

Yeah, how about correcting the injustices to the financially struggling homeowners??????

How about THAT, DV???????     The injustice brought on by YOUR DEMS who RAPE AND ROB from the homeonwers by FORCING THEM, via threat of seizing their homes, to pay for the property taxes of the millionaires downtown.

Or do you think that seizing homes from taxpyaers in order to exempt millionaires from paying taxes is justice?   Well?????

In the 30's only the children of the rich went to college.  Minorities were discriminated against, or murdered with impunity.  
Women could now vote, but many other opportunities were closed to them.  The elderly usually lived out their lives in poverty.
Workers had no rights, and few benefits with out unions.

It was a perfect Republican World.

Quoted from mikechristine1

Yeah, how about correcting the injustices to the financially struggling homeowners??????

How about THAT, DV???????     The injustice brought on by YOUR DEMS who RAPE AND ROB from the homeonwers by FORCING THEM, via threat of seizing their homes, to pay for the property taxes of the millionaires downtown.

Or do you think that seizing homes from taxpyaers in order to exempt millionaires from paying taxes is justice?   Well?????

You are confusing FDR's New Deal to Schenectady Metroplex's Raw Deal.  Both use central planners to use government spending and taxpayer dollars to promote a certain industry.  Schenectady centrally plans the economy around the arts and farts district.  It is failing horribly.  All central planning does eventually.  It took 10 years to prove it's failure on the local level, we are just now beginning to feel the horrific effects of the New Deal on the national level.  

Quoted from Box A Rox

In the 30's only the children of the rich went to college.  Minorities were discriminated against, or murdered with impunity.  Women could now vote, but many other opportunities were closed to them.  The elderly usually lived out their lives in poverty.Workers had no rights, and few benefits with out unions.

It was a perfect Republican World.

Now in 2012, the rich can still afford to send their kids to college, the middle class has to mortgage their home to send their kids to college, and the poor go to college on the rich and middle class dime putting the middle class in debt.

Now in 2012 it is the caucasian that is discriminated against through things like racial quota's and affirmative action.  Of course it is not discrimination when the majority or mob rule in a democracy votes to legalize discrimination.

Now in 2012 much like with the racial minority, the gender discrimination is also permitted through racial quota's and affirmative action.  Of course it is not discrimination when the majority or mob rule in a democracy votes to legalize discrimination.  

Now in 2012, elderly still live in poverty on systems like medicaid, they are warehoused in nursing homes and totally dependent on the state after generations of social welfare and public education destroyed the family.

Now in 2012, the workers have more rights to the profits of a business than the entrepreneur that created it.  The result is American manufacturing factories opening up in China and India.

Fifteen trillion in debt, trillions more in unfunded mandates, everybody a slave to the government - A perfect Democrat World.

cruel is when you have an elderly person crying because they realize their bones ache their eyes suck, their hearing sucks, orifices that didn't leak before now do....the eqalitiy is to make said adult of decades of life appear
'virtually happy'.....

cruel is also taking someones grey matter real estate and beating the hell out of it telling them they are an idiot for trying to make themselves better even if it is a hard road....

shhhh,,,'don't bother, it's too difficult for you, I'll fix it for you, it may not be the same but it will appear the same. you'll like it, because that's all you will remember.'

although A Clockwork Orange is the extreme of what we are....I'm not sure where we should stand on what is 'cruel'....the 'pre-fix' or the consequence of one's actions via swift justice instead of podium puck fodder and legal mumbo
jumbo like Buster's law or a DNA data base.....

which should we choose????

I could give a rat's a$$ what the stats say. It's about time you folks start getting 'up close and personal' with the folks who lived through it!!

FDR was a flat out rhetorical liar!! The seniors today can't survive on SS! Their medicare costs are out of sight!! Most seniors today have become totally dependent on the government. (something the liberal socialists planned) The seniors today that went to war and built this country during the industrial era and were promised a cushy retirement....are broke, starving, freezing, dependent instead of independent and have lost all of their dignity.

It was a bullsh!t, 'created' plan that the illiterate immigrants fell for!!!

FDR LIED TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE!! And now the chickens have come home to roost!!!

Enjoy your retirement and free socialized medical care folks!!  

The Republicans ruined America's economy TWICE in the past 100 years  ....  It took Democratic leadership to save us in the 1930's and that is what we need to save us today.

FDR LIED TO THE AMERICANS!!!

Those seniors are living that lie today........and living it in poverty!!!

SUCCESS!!!  

Quoted from bumblethru

FDR LIED TO THE AMERICANS!!!

Those seniors are living that lie today........and living it in poverty!!!

SUCCESS!!!  

...but it's government managed poverty.  FDR's S.S. program pits parents against their kids by telling them they have a right to their money, while the bureaucrat earns their money for being the middle man.

With out SS,  most of today's seniors would be living in the same way that they do now... minus $1000 per month and
with no health care.  
Just like they did  before SS gave Americans some dignity in their old age.

What "great" president would have divided up Berlin and Germany like he did? Berlin was left as equally divided, but was surrounded by East Germany, essentially leaving west Berlin land-locked. His stupidity led directly  to the Berlin Blockade and Airlift of 1948-1949..

Quoted from Box A Rox

With out SS,  most of today's seniors would be living in the same way that they do now... minus $1000 per month and with no health care.  Just like they did  before SS gave Americans some dignity in their old age.

Yes, managed poverty...Poverty none the less...Dignity?  Taking tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars away from a person during their lifetime while they are productive, then returning it to them at the rate of poverty isn't dignity it's a scam.