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FDR was no hero!David Chuhran The responses to my last editorial brought out a few people that thought I was too hard on FDR. To date, I have responded to everyone and this one got a little out-of-hand. Usually, I just make a few specific remarks and thank them for their interest, but this time it was different. It started in an email and grew into a full blown editorial. I don't know where the turning point was. Maybe searching the web for the fourth footnote source should've been a clue it was consuming me, but I didn't notice. My wife left the house and still hasn't returned. I don't know where she went and I hope it wasn't to the lawyer's office. Once I started, there was no stopping me. Adrenaline flowed. The words just rolled through my fingertips in response to the following: "As for FDR, he's a hero in my book. My parents were also raised in the depression, in Iowa. I grew up with their perspective. Some Iowa farmers were storing food because they feared a revolution. Small communities were isolated and decimated. FDR was a leader and he made his move. Whether you like the underlying political aspects of his policy, like Lincoln he held us together. Social security was, and still is, a great idea for a wealthy and compassionate nation like ours. I agree it should be reorganized, but the foundation is sound." (Use permission granted by the source.) My response: FDR is most likely a hero in many people's book. After all, that's what they teach you in school. The liberal stranglehold on the academic profession has allowed this revisionist view of history to become mainstream reality and it now permeates the very fabric that holds this great nation together. We've been purposely fooled. There are many little known facts about FDR's role behind the scenes that many argue deepened and prolonged the Great Depression rather than bring it to a quick and decisive end. It was the Bankers that profited at the expense of people like the Iowa farmers you describe. The sad thing is that it's happening again today. We're left to the multitude of liberal historians and their revisionist views and it takes a re-revisionist to take us full circle back to the truth. To fully understand this I suggest reading the Revisionist View of the Great Depression (Part 1) and (Part 2) by Antal E. Fekete. FDR single-handedly moved us farther away from the Founding Fathers' framework than any other President in history. His embrace of John Maynard Keynes' theories set the stage for government interference and manipulation on a grand scale for decades to come. Keynes' ideas sound familiar when you look at the Fed's actions today and are an eerie testament to a country being tricked into slowly moving toward Socialism. Here are two
snips from Keynes'
biography: "Why shouldn't government, thought Keynes, fill the shoes of business by investing in public works and hiring the unemployed? General Theory advocated deficit spending during economic downturns to maintain full employment. Keynes's conclusion initially met with opposition. At the time, balanced budgets were standard practice with the government. But the idea soon took hold and the United States government put people back to work on public works projects. Of course, once the policymakers had taken deficit spending to heart, they could not let go." This is the origin of the economic theory that now finds us over $7 Trillion in debt. In addition to borrowing, government intervention was made with money created out of thin air. It was a drug, and an addicting one at that, leaving our economic and political leadership enamored with their God-like ability to freely create wealth and fund more social programs with the printing press. Those social programs left our population feeling indebted to the all powerful and compassionate government that actively seized the roles of provider and caregiver. The Founding Fathers envisioned a nation of self sufficient and freedom loving entrepreneurs unburdened by the shackles of an overreaching government. Instead, we've ended up as a nation full of whining current and future recipients dependent on the government's targeted "good will." Just as they became addicted to the power to create and direct wealth, we became addicted to them providing for our needs. We became needy! They did this through the redistribution of an ever increasing amount of tax revenue, through programs like Social Security and Welfare, along with their assumed right to expand the aggregate money supply. The founding Fathers never envisioned this sort of tyranny, as a matter of fact, they fought against it. It is Socialism! Keynes was a Socialist with favorable views of Communism. He married a Russian Ballerina and regularly praised Stalin's Soviet Union. He believed in government control of the economy. As proof of this I offer the following from Keynes and the Reds by Ralph Raico: "But if Keynes was such a model champion of the free society, how can we account for his peculiar comments, in 1933, endorsing, though with reservations, the social "experiments" that were going on at the time in Italy, Germany, and Russia? And what about his strange introduction to the 1936 German translation of General Theory, where he writes that his approach to economic policy is much better suited to a totalitarian state such as that run by the Nazis than, for instance, to Britain?" Raico goes on to say, "In his talk, Keynes proclaims Soviet Communism to be a book "which every serious citizen will do well to look into." Soviet Communism: A New Civilisation? was written by Sidney and Beatrice Webb in 1935. Keynes was enamored with their work further revealing his leanings when he says, "Until recently events in Russia were moving too fast and the gap between paper professions and actual achievements was too wide for a proper account to be possible. But the new system is now sufficiently crystallized to be reviewed. The result is impressive. The Russian innovators have passed, not only from the revolutionary stage, but also from the doctrinaire stage." Ironically, it was Beatrice Potter (later Webb) who detailed a complete plan for Social Security and Welfare in 1909. This is a tragedy and it's unfolding before our eyes. Our modern economic framework is based on the theories of Keynes, a man so far away from the basic principles upon which this great nation was founded. In conclusion, Raico says: "No, Keynes was no 'model liberal', but rather a statist and an occasional apologist for the century's most ruthless regimes. His very peculiar comments, especially on Soviet Russia, when added to his state-enhancing economic theory and his state-dominated utopian vision, should give pause to those who so unhesitatingly enlist him in the liberal ranks. Viewing Keynes as perhaps 'the model liberal of the twentieth century' can only render an indispensable historical concept incoherent." It's this very same "incoherent" "historical concept" that you and I were taught in public school. It was, in fact, FDR's embrace of Keynes' theories that were the beginning of our long path toward potential self destruction. I've read some that say this was Stalin's goal. He knew he couldn't destroy us militarily, so maybe the seeds of economic warfare were planted instead. Maybe Patton was right when he said, "If we have to fight them, now is the time."!? Regardless, even though the Soviet Union is gone now, those seeds have grown and it appears about time for the harvest! In An Open Letter to President Roosevelt, Keynes said: "Broadly speaking, therefore, an increase of output cannot occur unless by the operation of one or other of three factors. Individuals must be induced to spend more out of their existing incomes; or the business world must be induced, either by increased confidence in the prospects or by a lower rate of interest, to create additional current incomes in the hands of their employees, which is what happens when either the working or the fixed capital of the country is being increased; or public authority must be called in aid to create additional current incomes through the expenditure of borrowed or printed money. In bad times the first factor cannot be expected to work on a sufficient scale. The second factor will come in as the second wave of attack on the slump after the tide has been turned by the expenditures of public authority. It is, therefore, only from the third factor that we can expect the initial major impulse." I had to stop here. After highlighting the important points above, I said to myself, "The most practical people I know are farmers and quoting this isn't practical." What was all this, econobabble? Economists are prone to using too many words and this is certainly wordy. I needed this important point to be clear, concise, and "practical," linking the past to the present. I pushed away from the table and sat there for a long time blankly staring at the computer screen. All of a sudden my focus sharpened and it hit me. There it was, right in front of me in bold print! I assembled the puzzle: Individuals must be induced to spend more by a lower rate of interest, or public authority must aid through the expenditure of borrowed or printed money. Sound familiar? That's it! It's the whole Keynesian Theory wrapped up into one "practical" sentence with the key concepts being borrow, print, lower rates, and spend, spend, spend! We're still using the same Socialist playbook Keynes enticed FDR to use over 70 years ago. We've been on a borrowing, printing, and spending binge doubling the money supply since '95. The Fed has also dropped interest rates to their lowest level in 45 years. These low interest rates were intended to stimulate personal incomes and spending, but they've also stimulated a carry trade. Greenspan appears cornered and may not be able to raise interest rates, if necessary, because he promised his "soldier" banks that he would leave the spread intact. The sad part is that once again the Bankers are like hogs at the trough slopping up "free money" and profiting at the expense of those very same Iowa farmers' grandchildren. If Greenspan backs out now by suddenly raising rates, it would likely result in a derivative meltdown that could collapse the World economy. Oh, the irony! Money controls the World and the Bankers control the money. The Bankers view Politicians, on both sides of the aisle, as an annoyance to be manipulated and coerced into enacting policies they aren't capable of understanding. To Bankers, Politicians come and go like fleas. To Politicians, Bankers are rabid dogs deserving an occasional bone. To an Iowa farmer, and many more taxpayers, it simply looks like a rabid, flea-bag dog that keeps nipping at their wallet! This feels like deja vu all over again. Keynes' Socialistic policies are what started this and they're the same thing that will end this. Unfortunately, I fear it's not leading to a happy ending. Marx, Lenin, and Stalin would be proud of Comrade Keynes. We both learned the same things in public school history class. FDR was deified by the liberal historians who wrote our history books. Those same liberal historians and economists embrace Keynesian Socialist Economics and believe in government control and wealth redistribution. We all agree that we're a "wealthy and compassionate nation," but they're the ones happy with redistributing your wealth. And, trust me; you're not going to be smiling when you're means tested out of Social Security after a lifetime's worth of contributions. The revisionists have no interest in teaching you or your children the truth. The truth is that the Founding Fathers were right, Keynes was wrong, and... ...FDR was no hero! Thank you for your interest, David Chuhran My wife is home now (Whew!) and we're having pork chops for dinner. Without a doubt, the best chops come from Iowa! Copyright ©2004 David Chuhran. All Rights Reserved 321gold Inc |
