The Great Depression, Socialists and Portland. Again.

A common misconception from historians is the belief that the New Deal program “saved” America from greed, capitalism and corporate tyranny. Also, how capitalism itself causes the great depression in the first place (stock market crash).

I wonder how they obtain this information when those who study economics their entire lives will typically have a major disagreement with this notion?

For one, it was the Federal Reserve that caused it. Federally mandated, federally regulated but privately-ran. Making it one of the first and worst government sponsored enterprises. I will not get into the details because well, I don’t need to. Instead, I would highly suggest not reading Paul Krugman or Robert Reich for one.

I would read instead “The Forgotten Man,” anything from Thomas Sowell, Milton Friedman or people who are actual economists. There are several scholarly books and textbooks written about what caused the stock market crash and what made the great depression “great.”

Andrew Berstein even presents a moral case for capitalism. That’s because he’s an actual economist, not a historian that hardly includes economic history from :ahem: actual economists. So, clearly he supports free trade.

You know who doesn’t? Historians like Howard Zinn or Eric Foner. Both of them are prominent historians and their textbooks used widely throughout the nation. Zinn, in particular, lionizes the leftist movements and uses historians that support socialism. No kidding. Zinn was an admitted Marxist.

Eric Foner, on the other hand, is more difficult to figure out. Unless you read his books. Give Me Liberty is an excellent example of a well known history textbooks that sympathizes with socialists in America. I am not saying students should not learn about socialism in school, however. In fact everyone should learn about economics and whatever philosophy involved, which includes marxism. Not simply one or the other. How are students supposed to learn in an objective way if they're only taught about marxism (and all of it’s various ideas from it)?

Anyways….

Even Ben Bernacke’s dissertation (or was it thesis?) was based off of the federal reserve causing the great depression. Funny how economists then and now know this, understand this and keep mentioning it…. all the while liberals, politicians and journalists on the Huffington Post (Huggington Poopst) and NYT continuously keep posting the same nonsense.

If you keep saying something and repeating it throughout history, does it become true?

Person A : “But, Portland Thinker, what would we do if government couldn’t control the interest

       rates or money supply?”

Portland Thinker : “They would be more competitive and the rate of inflation would be drastically

      reduced.”   :)

If one of your questions are “Gee, Portland Thinker, you’re not even an economist, so why do you think you’d know better than one of us?”

My answer is this, so listen carefully. Very carefully.

I am not an economist. I do, however, love to read about the topic and defer to the author’s better judgement than mine. Why, you ask? Because I am not an economist. :)

Just think of all of the textbooks you read in the past about various topics.

Linguistics?

Ancient History?

What about humanities in general?

What about nursing textbooks?  Were these nursing textbooks written by astrophysicists? Probably a dumb question you don’t need to answer.

So, next time you hear some “super duper horrible libertarian, hell bent on individualism, touting off evil about free trade,” keep in mind they probably got their information from someone who is considered an expert in their field. And no, this doesn’t include politicians of either party.

However, regardless of how many times I hear these misconceptions or or mention the opposing facts to someone in Portland, I usually get a condescending remark.