Monday, September 19, 2011
Open a Book Yourself, Kemosabe
Chris Matthews loves to make fun of Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann for their their obvious lack of historical acumen; the fact that Bachmann said that the founding fathers "worked tirelessly" to get rid of slavery, the fact that Palin said that Paul Revere was actually trying to warn the British that the British were coming, etc.. He pretty much does it constantly and, while, yeah, it is in fact humorous at times, it's also getting a little sanctimonious, too....................................................................................................And, plus, it isn't like Matthews himself never errs. Just the other night, for example, he throw out that old hackneyed and now thoroughly discredited bromide that Herbert Hoover "did nothing to try and end the depression". If Mr. Matthews actually DID know his history, he'd have known that President Hoover - a) worked with the Chamber of Commerce to set up the National Business Survey Conference (an entity that sought to obtain pledges from business that they maintain wages/undertake new investments), b) set up a new division in the Commerce Department to speed up federal construction projects (infrastructure, Rachel Maddow), c) pushed through a temporary tax reduction, d) worked with Congress to increase, by 400 million (probably a lot of money for back then), public works expenditures (yes, Rachel Maddow, MORE infrastructure!), e) authorized the establishment of the Federal Farm Board (this, to make low interest loans and to purchase grain when prices were falling), f) advocated for and signed (bone-headedly, in the opinion of most economists) the Smoot-Hawley tariff bill, and g) established the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (the attempt being to stabilize the banking system).......................................................................................................Now, this isn't to say that what Mr. Hoover did was either a) effective and/or b) sufficient (conservatives tend to think that he did too much, liberals not enough). It's simply an attempt to show that even somebody as supposedly smart (not to mention, smarmy and self righteous) as Matthews probably shouldn't be casting dispersions by the trailer-load.
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11 comments:
OK point taken...Thing is, Matthews isn't running for the POTUS, Palin is or might be or is threatning to...whatever. She has made plenty of swarmy, self righteous judgments about the present administration and even some of the candidates. Matthews is a journalist who is calling it like he sees it...because he's human and because of his chosen profession he could temper his commentary a tad...
Timing is everything Will. Herbert Hoover was indeed a good man. So was Gerald Ford. Jimmy Carter is a good man. barack Obama is a good man. They just became presidents at bad times. Moses couldn't deliver us from the mess Obama inherited. Especially not with republicans in Congress in who's political interests it's in not to deliver us.
Marcus, my prediction is that Palin won't run. And if in fact she does, she'll be crushed. The tea party doesn't even think that she's qualified.............So true, Truth. Presidents get too much credit for the good times and far too much blame for the bad. As for President Obama, he's lucky in this respect - the opposition.
Will: ...advocated for and signed (bone-headedly, in the opinion of most economists) the Smoot-Hawley tariff bill.
This, IMO, is how you can tell a good economist from a bad one (the bad ones support free trade).
Also, Hoover may not have done "nothing", but he did too little too late. We needed a real progressive to get us out of the Republican Great Depression, which is why FDR was re-elected so many times.
It's what we need right now... another FDR-type progressive president.
FDR was reelected predominantly because he shamelessly used the patronage system. Any state that he needed for the electoral college, that was close, he basically took a fleet of dump-trucks and unloaded a bunch of moolah there. What a guy!
Firstly, Will, GREAT article. Whether one agrees or disagrees, the discussion point is above most people's heads, and the point should be made.
However, it would have been better without the mention of Matthews and with a thesis change. I doubt that Matthews is ignorant of the Hoover efforts, but he doesn't read this blog and so he cannot debate them. Further, his foibles, if they are in fact foibles, don't compare to Palin's and are far more forgivable for that reason.
Matthews does not sound like an ignorant little boy when he speaks.
Will: ...he basically took a fleet of dump-trucks and unloaded a bunch of moolah there. What a guy!
So voters who identified as Republican and strongly disagreed that FDR's policies were what was needed to get us out of the depression... they voted Democratic because FDR put some money into programs to help the working man? Even though they didn't think those programs would work? I do not -- not for one second -- buy your explaination.
People voted for FDR because they realized his policies were what was needed to help the economy recover... recover from the Republican-caused Depression. It's that simple.
Workin said: "Moses couldn't deliver us from the mess Obama inherited"
Perhaps he could have. But Obama made the mess much worse, as a direct result of his actions. Since he took office, gas prices are much higher. The entire national debt 50% is larger. Unemployment 20% is higher. Etc.
People keep talking about how Obama could not have undone the mess Bush left. But at the very least he could have at least worked to make things better, instead of a lot worse.
Let me put my partisan stuff aside and ask you Dmarks. In all seriousness and looking back at what has transpired since Obama took office, would we be better off having done nothing, no bailouts, no QE's, no low interest rate guarentees, and allowed the banks to fail and markets to correct themselves.
I think it would have plunged us into a depression personally, but we really don't know for sure if that would have happened.
My concern now is that they just announced Operation Twist which shifts short term treasuries into long term. I hated the idea since I have a shitload of money in a mortgage reit for the high dividend and sure enough, it dropped like a freaking rock as well as the rest of the stock market. Hedge fund managers like mortgage reits because of the high dividends also. They're not really dividends since the payouts are taxed as ordinary income and not capital gains so we're paying more taxes on our profits, so to speak. My profits have vanished thanks to the price drop.
I'm thinking that while I agree the stimulus and tarp and the first rounds of QE were necessary, it may be time for government to step back and allow what's going to happen happen.
Truth is, for all the economics degrees and MBA's on Wall St. and in Washington, I don't think anyone has any idea of what the hell to do.
Truth is, for all the economics degrees and MBA's on Wall St. and in Washington, I don't think anyone has any idea of what the hell to do.
That sums it up.
wd, the fact that he put far more money into the states which were up for grabs than he did the states which were already in his pocket is textbook corruption. And it it is a strong possibility that the man put forth numerous programs that more than likely extended the Depression (the NRA, especially). You don't believe me? Try reading John Maynard Keynes's open letter to FDR in the New York Times.......And if FDR was such a champion of the working man, then why did the individual markedly increase the country's reliance on the regressive excise tax and put forth policies (such as the NRA) that put a lot of small businesses out of business? My God, you're allegiance to this guy is almost as scary as Rush Limbaugh's blind allegiance to Reagan.
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