Hoover and the Depression

Like a lot of presidents he happened to be in office when something bad happened that had been building for a number of years, so he got the blame.

 

A good man who got a bad rap.

 

Hoover has long been tagged a laissez-faire hands-off-the-market Republican who believed the markets were self-correcting. He wasn't. He signed into law the disastrous protectionist, isolationist legislation know as the Smoot-Hawley Act, which is probably the most proactive interventionist legislation Congress has ever approved to regulate the markets. It didn't do much but cause the ultimate collapse of the international markets and guarantee a worldwide Great Depression. How? It doubled tariffs on incoming goods from countries that charged burdensome tariffs for our own exports. Countries retaliated in kind and before long no one was selling anything anywhere.

The act evolved out of Hoover's know-nothing agricultural tariffs. He acted as his own SecAg, and wrote the legislation that eventually spawned Smoot-Hawley. Apparently he figured what was good for the goose was good ... for the other goose. He also refused to reign in speculative investment on margin, which ultimately led to the stock market collapse when margins were called on Black Tuesday. Hoover's theory of economic management was no management at all in a day and age when there were no checks and balances on greed and avarice.

Yes, Hoover was responsible for the Great Depression. But he shares the blame with Congress, the Fed and Wall Street.

 

Ah so if Mr Hoover was personally responsible for the Depression, does that mean Australians and New Zealanders can point the bone at him too.

The Great Depression had a very severe effect down under....my grandparents shuddered at the memories

 

Because of Smoot-Hawley, they most assuredly can.

 

I had never heard of Smoot nor Hawley......my knowledge deficit has been reduced although I do not really understand WHY...but the consequences were catastrophic world wide, and paved the way to the second world war....

 

Comic Relief

I might have shared this joke before on the BB. I was watching a Bob Hope documentary. Hoover's slogan when running for President was Prosperity is just around the corner. But in the throes of the Great Depression people tended to doubt that.

A lady comes up to Bob in the lobby and askes him :"Young man,could you tell me where I could find the rest room?"
And Bob tells her :"Sure, it's just around the corner."
Then she replies with :"Don't give me that Hoover talk!":laugh: