(11-18-2019, 10:16 AM)jj82284 Wrote:

(11-18-2019, 08:06 AM)mikesez Wrote: Your last paragraph is spot on.
Government can't plan or program economic growth, and economic growth is the only thing that makes increases to the standard of living possible.  
Recessions are inevitable, but some recessions are shorter and smoother than others.  Government programs can smooth over recessions
The 2008 recession caused much less suffering than the 1929 recession.  The main reason was government unemployment insurance.  Wasn't there in 1929, was there in 2008.  Made a big difference for a lot of families.
As for banking, a lot of people would point to the panics of 1837, 1857, 1873, 1893, 1907, and say that such things happen much less frequently now.

In total recessions actually occur at a greater frequency under Federal Reserve policy than before.  

1929 is the perfect test case to disprove your major thesis.  After the stock Market crash, unemployment spiked at double digits, and then, predictably it started to normalize.  It bottomed out around 6.3% BEFORE the endless string of government interventions, tax increases, regulations etc. that would see it shoot back over double digits and stay that way for a DECADE!  

2008 is an even worse case.  The Government sponsored entities were actually participating in the mortgage market and selling derivatives that caused the greatest systemic collapse of the monetary system that we have ever devised.  IT's only because our economy has grown to the point that we  Congress can print 800 billion dollars and not have the dollar completely collapse that we didn't see a complete and utter failure of the economic system as a whole.  That kind of systemic risk is ONLY POSSIBLE when all the decisions for a part of the economy are happening in a central location where one or two miscalculations causes a domino affect.  

Getting back to the original tangent to the op, white supremacists, Nazis, national socialists etc. in the main are not lazier faire free market capitalists.  Richard Spencer has admitted freely that he's a socialist.  There contention is that with the understanding that the state sponsored goodies are finite that they want to keep them for themselves and those like them.  They also want to do the best to ensure that those disenfranchised to fund their utopian state are those least like them.  The demonization of Jews specifically as practitioners of capitalism, ownership of the means of production, money lending, and monopolists of passive income comes straight from Marx himself.

There are a few things that people get wrong about the 1929 crash.  One is that there was minimal government intervention before Roosevelt's New Deal.  Another is that the New Deal began paying out instantly in 1933 when he became President.
Hoover intervened in the US economy in a big way.  He started huge infrastructure projects.  Remember the Hoover Dam?  Just one example.  The level of Federal spending under Hoover was actually similar to what it was under Roosevelt.  They were both much higher than pre-crash levels, though.
I'm not sure I see this alleged 6.3% unemployment rate come about until we got into WWII. https://www.thebalance.com/unemployment-...ar-3305506
I'm really not sure what kind of point you're trying to make about 2008.  There are many reasons why "Congress can print 800 billion dollars and not have the dollar completely collapse" - economic growth is actually not the main one.
I agree that there was too much concentration of decision making for part of the economy.  I agree that Freddie and Fannie got too big - but so did AIG, and so did Wachovia, so did a lot of banks that are no longer with us.  Concentrated and centralized power presents unacceptable risk regardless of if the power is held by a government employee or a private employee - both make mistakes.  From about 1890 to about 1974, it was understood that the American dream, our capitalist vision, is stifled when either companies or government programs get too big.  Companies that are too big to fail or too big to compete with are simply too big - they need to be broken up.  Hoover understood this, and Roosevelt did too.

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