history
A series of recent books has demolished the myth. Some of Roosevelt's reforms were salutary (the Securities and Exchange Commission, reform of the Federal Reserve) but the New Deal's chief object was never achieved -- it did not solve the nation's unemployment problem.
The CATO Institute's Jim Powell points out in "FDR's Folly," "From 1934 to 1940, the median annual unemployment rate was 17.2. At no point during the 1930s did unemployment go below 14 percent. ... Living standards remained depressed until after the war."
Stanford University history professor David Kennedy has acknowledged, "Whatever it was, the New Deal was not a recovery program, or at any rate not an effective one."
On balance, the New Deal damaged the nation profoundly by extending and deepening the Great Depression. No other downturn in American history lasted so long or afflicted so many.
So no repeats, thank you very much.
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[meanwhile, in the media...
NNBrief FLASHBACKs x9: http://netizennewsbrief.blogspot.com/search?q=fdr
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