Elad’s blog

Herbert Hoover did nothing.

Here’s what the official whitehouse site says about the 31th president of the USA:

After capably serving as Secretary of Commerce under Presidents Harding and Coolidge, Hoover became the Republican Presidential nominee in 1928. He said then: “We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land.” His election seemed to ensure prosperity. Yet within months the stock market crashed, and the Nation spiraled downward into depression.

After the crash Hoover announced that while he would keep the Federal budget balanced, he would cut taxes and expand public works spending.

In 1931 repercussions from Europe deepened the crisis, even though the President presented to Congress a program asking for creation of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to aid business, additional help for farmers facing mortgage foreclosures, banking reform, a loan to states for feeding the unemployed, expansion of public works, and drastic governmental economy.

At the same time he reiterated his view that while people must not suffer from hunger and cold, caring for them must be primarily a local and voluntary responsibility. 

So, officially, two years into ‘the great depression’, the US president still believed that help should be “local and voluntary”. They needed to elect Roosevelt in order to have a “new deal”.

Nowadays, the US government spends ridiculous amount of money trying to controll the economical crisis while it is possible. Could they have actually learned something?

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 9th, 2008 at 3:15 and is filed under Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.