Looking forward to new Obama appointments to NPR management (0.00 / 0)

Bring back the Frank Mankewiecz era.

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by: rootless2 @ Thu Jan 22, 2009 at 02:48:58 AM UTC

Geithner and the new deal (4.00 / 4)

While surfing the tube this morning I stumbled upon CNBC and someone was talking about geithner's hearing. Geithner said the government stopped too early the stimulus in 1937 and we must stay the course on the current stimulus. This is from my memory.

I looked online but couldn't find a transcript of the hearing. I found only a pdf of his opening remarks in the senate site. But I found the relevant sections on the NYT's and WSJ's live-blogs of the hearing. Here:

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes....

12:25 p.m. | The New Deal: Talk turns to the Great Depression, and what the government did to help the United States pull out of it. Mr. Geithner says he generally supported the range of government programs and fiscal stimulus plans from that era, but suggests that there the government pulled back its economic support too early - he includes the Federal Reserve in this criticism. The strategy this time around should be "doing a lot soon, and staying with it," he says.

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics...

12:21: Sen. John Ensign quizzes Geithner on the Great Depression, perhaps looking to challenge the Fed official's view. "Do you think the New Deal is what brought us out of the Depression?" Ensign asks. Geithner proceeds to cite the consensus of historians and economists, but is stopped and asked for his own view. Geithner responds, "I share the belief that it was only when we had in place" very substantial stimulus, stabilization of the banking system and a change in the exchange-rate regime that we were able to get out of the Depression. "We got there later than we should have as a country" due to efforts to pull back too soon before a recovery, he says.

Ensign isn't finished and starts asking about 1937 and the "depression within the depression." Geithner says the record shows "a bit of an early shift toward restraint before growth was strong enough. It underscores the importance of doing a lot soon and staying with it."

Then comes a question about the effect of tax increases in 1937, perhaps Ensign's effort to suggest that tax increases are counterproductive. Geithner gets out of a potential trap: He says he has more familiarity with monetary policy and the financial system than with taxes and spending, and repeats his point about pulling back stimulus too early.

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by: The Big Hurt @ Thu Jan 22, 2009 at 03:40:27 AM UTC

That's good news (4.00 / 2)

Geithner is drawing the right lessons, it seems.

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by: Daniel De Groot @ Thu Jan 22, 2009 at 03:47:07 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

yes (4.00 / 1)

this is a 'stay the course' I can support

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by: The Big Hurt @ Thu Jan 22, 2009 at 03:52:33 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Contemporary memory (0.00 / 0)

Bill James, the baseball statistician and historian, says that contemporary evaluation of baseball players needs to be taken into account.  If a player finished high in the MVP voting over a number of years, was on the All-Star team, etc. but is ignored decades later, weight needs to be given. People aren't stupid.  They can see what's out there (btw, many of those players were great players with somewhat shorter careers and thus poorer lifetime statistics but better averages).

Well, the people of the time thought the world of FDR and LIncoln and not nearly so much of Ronald Reagan (see approval ratings from his second term).  Bill Clinton scored better than the pundits (or so far the historians) give him credit.  Herbert Hoover and James Buchanan sucked, thank you very much.  Much of this seems to depend on the paid and systematic effort of "conservative scholars" to drag down every Democrat, liberal, or real reformer rather than the yes men for the super rich.  Think about it.  There were paid lobbies to drag down Clinton while he was in office.  Paid lobbies to drag down JFK after he died.  Now a paid lobby to drag down FDR.  And a paid lobby after the fact to try to turn Ronald Reagan into some kind of a god.

Amity Shlaes is a paid liar. The people of FDR's time knew better despite a vicious propaganda war unprecedented since at least the time of Lincoln. This was so cockeyed and consistent that it was even debunked with a little venom in a John Wayne WW II movie ("In Harm's Way) by the Duke, himself.  (The movie dates to the 60s, btw, when Wayne was a right wing icon.)

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by: David Kowalski @ Thu Jan 22, 2009 at 08:25:02 AM UTC

Long Term Project: Smash FDR (4.00 / 6)

We need to begin by understanding that the Republican Right, beginning in the 1960's put together a long term project to totally delegitimize and destroy FDR on many fronts.  After all it was a necessary pre-condition to rolling back the New Deal, the entitlement programs as well as all the regulatory structures.  Their articles and books over the last 40 years are "out there" and at least one result of their effort was to influence how the history of the era was taught in High Schools around the country.  In most cases, the simple descriptive history of the times and the programs have been replaced in history texts used in schools with narrative of ineffective programs, or conflicts about them -- both of which direct attention away from getting students to engage with the horrors of those times and what was actually done in the face of it all.  Uppermost in the Right's mind was to destroy the notion that Government could be an effective actor.  

I haven't read Amity Shlaes book -- but have read a number of articles and books on the same theme (I did teach this era at the University Level for 20 years, and personally have researched and written on aspects of the era -- my own focus being on arts and culture in New Deal programs and the era.)  I did a good deal of my graduate level research when lots of New Dealers were still around and available for questions and interviews -- so yes, it is important to find ways to listen to those few still alive -- but there also is plenty of material produced by Historians and others during the 60's and 70's that reflects access to the original actors.  

There are aspects of Jonathan Alter's book I really don't particularly like -- it isn't so much his evidence, it is his focus.  More Journalism than History.  He begins with counter-historical question -- "What would have happened if the assassin of Mayor Cermak had successfully killed FDR just weeks before that 1933 New Deal Beginning?"  Interesting question, but it didn't happen, so what kind of understanding of FDR and FDR's construction of the New Deal do we get from such meanderings?  

In my mind, any decent overview of the period leads one to note that Norman Thomas the Socialist, got quite a few votes in that 1932 election -- and that there is considerable identity between Thomas's platform planks, and things that were ultimately built into New Deal programs -- maybe time could be better spent, as we try to fashion progressive influence in an Obama Administration, reading ourselves into that process of influence. I don't see FDR as particularly attracted to Socialism -- but he was deeply interested in the proposed programs, and he reconceptualized them as part of his program.  Asking this question of history gets us close to examining how leftie political creativity and influence can actually work under real world American Political Conditions.  Just imagine if you will what FDR really faced in "doing change" -- today we understand that Senator Cornyn of Texas is the Republican Ringer of the day -- but in 1933 FDR had a Senate with about 20 just as replusive right wing-nuts, and all of them were both Southern Racist Democrats, and Senior Senate Committee Chairs. (Do you know "Cotton" Ed Smith of South Carolina or Walter George of Georgia?) How FDR was sometimes able to charm them into supporting programs and legislation is something very worthwhile to understand.  How eventually he lost his powers to charm is equally useful to understand as a tool of political analysis.  For instance if you want to know why FDR retreated on funding some of his programs in 37-38 -- well you have to look at the Southern Dixiecrat attacks on him in that period.  Looking at the actual record of that period, I put the blame for the "pull back" less on FDR, more on his opponents within the Democratic Party.  I think this is how you seriously attack Amity Shlaes analysis -- and all the others in her "school" who present like-minded attacks.  You do it that way because Cornyn is an ideological kin to FDR's Dixiecrat opponents, and today those are the ones we want to focus on given the damage they could do.  

   

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by: Sara @ Thu Jan 22, 2009 at 08:41:01 AM UTC

It Would Be So Refreshing If Democrats Could Simply Tell The Truth (4.00 / 2)

in the same straightforward way that Republicans lie.

Then, when a nominee like Geithner is questioned about the Great Depression, and what prolonged it, he could say, "It was people just like you, Senator, who stood in the way of an activist government helping the American people, and saving the market from itself.  FDR's big mistake was that he didn't fight people like you hard enough."

But, then, they could tell the truth.  If only they wanted to.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Thu Jan 22, 2009 at 18:04:26 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

yes! yes! yes! (0.00 / 0)

Then, when a nominee like Geithner is questioned about the Great Depression, and what prolonged it, he could say, "It was people just like you, Senator, who stood in the way of an activist government helping the American people, and saving the market from itself.  FDR's big mistake was that he didn't fight people like you hard enough."

you hit the nail on the head paul

if the gop fires shots against the new deal all the time, and all the democrats do is say nothing, what can we expect but the erosion of the new deal's legacy

speak up democrats!

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by: The Big Hurt @ Thu Jan 22, 2009 at 18:14:22 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

school textbooks (0.00 / 0)

In most cases, the simple descriptive history of the times and the programs have been replaced in history texts used in schools with narrative of ineffective programs, or conflicts about them -- both of which direct attention away from getting students to engage with the horrors of those times and what was actually done in the face of it all.

oh my, is it so bad?

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by: The Big Hurt @ Thu Jan 22, 2009 at 18:07:54 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Yes, it is sometimes that bad. (4.00 / 2)

I see the periodic attacks on High School Reading Lists that include, for instance, Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" as precisely this.  American Literature and History teachers either don't include the classic, (too much controversy), or they have to spend hours bucking up a school board to defend the educator's choice, against right wing organized opposition.

Yet teaching the Novel is one of the most rewarding experiences a teacher can have -- kids love the characters, many of them have seen the Henry Fonda film, and thus know something of the narrative, and they enjoy doing papers on the book.  They will dig into "dust bowl" science -- they are fascinated with the old fords with mattresses on their roofs, and the great migration.  I always played them Woodie Gutherie's Dust Bowl Ballads -- and some would go off and get the music and lyrics and work that angle, and I could always get a debate going about the New Deal Shelter Belt program to stop soil erosion, and whether Farmers and County Agents today appreciated the issue, when they recommended that as farms were enlarged in the 60's and afterwards, many of these tree stands were removed for the convenience of the tractors. Thank goodness when you do this at the University, there is no strong repression.  But I had many a student conversation that began with ..."That Book was not permitted in my High School Library."

And Grapes of Wrath is just one small example -- One of the most important events of the 30's was the rise of the CIO -- the Industrial Unions. In some cases that is hardly in the text.  In fact most are pretty devoid of labor history.      

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by: Sara @ Thu Jan 22, 2009 at 20:06:58 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Jonathan Alter is a journalist, (0.00 / 0)

not a historian. And "What would have happened. . . ?" is not a journalistic question, if you meant that to stand as an example of your point.

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by: Vico @ Thu Jan 22, 2009 at 23:19:26 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Meant to reply (0.00 / 0)

to the original Sara post.

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by: Vico @ Thu Jan 22, 2009 at 23:20:32 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

"The Grapes of Wrath" is one of my favorite books (4.00 / 1)

And Grapes of Wrath is just one small example -- One of the most important events of the 30's was the rise of the CIO -- the Industrial Unions. In some cases that is hardly in the text.  In fact most are pretty devoid of labor history.

 

that's so sad...

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by: The Big Hurt @ Fri Jan 23, 2009 at 00:46:45 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Amendment XX (4.00 / 1)

Glad to see this reference as I've meant to look up when moving up the date from March to January was enacted.

This summer I visited Lincoln's New Salem Village, an Illinois State Historic Site. The work of renovating the rural, river-side community, where Lincoln lived and worked before he moved to Springfield, was undertaken by the Civilian Conservation Corps. I had no idea that such a substantial project would have been a CCC project, but the site's museum documents the men and their contributions very nicely.  

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by: Books Alive @ Thu Jan 22, 2009 at 17:44:51 PM UTC