Economic debates 1932-2010

In this post I will be looking at two blogs that discuss the two arguments on how to fix a sick market. I will give examples of how the debate on to fix the economy in election of 1932 is still going on in 2010. It is sad to think that the biggest change between 1932 and today is who the people debating are because nothing has changed in the debate. The worst thing is that results from both should have killed this argument back then because one only hurt the economy.
The first blog post that I looked at was the Becker-Posner blog which in 2009 went over the Obama Stimulus Plan. The blog seems to be a blog that discusses the big news at time. The blog opens with argument about why a stimulus is bad for a health marker because it creates too many jobs that over crowds the markets. In the blog Becker argues that he thinks that projected numbers for stimulus are a little excessive, but then says that those numbers could be exactly right. This blog helped me to understand one argument to help a sick market and that is government aid in form of stimulus package like the New Deal. The point to the stimulus package is to help the market by creating jobs which puts money back into the market. This way saw some success under FDR but it was a slow improvement. One argument can be made against a stimulus is that comes in at time when people are panicking and the stimulus gets rushed through and is not as effective as could be if they took time to work on it and make sure it was as effective as possible. Another thing that hurts a stimulus is that politician want to be reelected and what better way than to bring something back home so they add pork belly which usual does something that complete wastes the money like a Bridge to Nowhere that could go to creating jobs. One recent occurrence of this was a Republican from Nebraska basically sold his vote on health care for benefits to Nebraska that could help get him reelected.
The other blog is by Michael Johns who is one of the founders of the Tea Party Movement. Johns talks about the Tea Party Movement which is a movement that has no goals and no direction other than small government should not interfere with the economy. So they provide no answer in how to fix the market just let be. In the blog Johns as founder of group argues that lack of direction is just a slight growing pain for this group. This blog is a lot of empty rhetoric that has no evidence and backed solely by Johns resume at the bottom of the blog. Johns now works as a health care executive, he was former White House official and he also was the speech writer for George H. W. Bush.
In the election of 1932, President Hoover made argument that the way to fix the market was to leave it alone which had worked so well the last three years of his term that unemployment increased by about twenty four percent. This argument is basically the same as trying to treat sinking boat with hole in it like it was boat that had no hole in it. This is one reason that all people who got stuck in Hoovervilles were so angry Hoover he offered no help.
To be honest both of these arguments are flawed but one has never shown any way of helping a sick market. The government staying out business is what actually led to economic recession and the Great Depression. In all three cases there was president in office at time of and term before the economic problems started supported the small government and staying ou business motto. Also if someone searched the five worse yearly deficits up 2007 two of three president have all five. Bush junior has the four worst years of all time and those four years where in a row so if people wonder why the market is the way it is now this was definitely a factor. The fifth worst year happened under Bush senior around same time as economic recession of the early 1990s.



Work Citied

1. Chambers, Clarke. The New Deal at Home and Abroad, 1929-1945.New York: The Free Press. 1967. Print.
2. Becker, Gary and Posner, Richard. “On the Obama Stimulus Plan-Becker.” Weblog Entry. The Becker-PosnerBlog. 11 January 2009. Web. 18 February 2010.
3. Johns, Michael. “Tea Party Potential, Tea Party Challenges.” Weblog Entry. Michael Johns. 28 January 2010. Web. 18 February 2010