Jim Powell, "FDR's Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression"

The Great Depression and the New Deal. For generations, the collective American consciousness has believed that the former ruined the country and the latter saved it. Endless praise has been heaped upon President Franklin Delano Roosevelt for masterfully reining in the Depression's destructive effects and propping up the country on his New Deal platform. In fact, FDR has achieved mythical status in American history and is considered to be, along with Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln, one of the greatest presidents of all time. But would the Great Depression have been so catastrophic had the New Deal never been implemented"

In FDR's Folly, historian Jim Powell argues that it was in fact the New Deal itself, with its shortsighted programs, that deepened the Great Depression, swelled the federal government, and prevented the country from turning around quickly. You'll discover in alarming detail how FDR's federal programs hurt America more than helped it, with effects we still feel today, including:

• How Social Security actually increased unemployment
• How higher taxes undermined good businesses
• How new labor laws threw people out of work
• And much more

This groundbreaking book pulls back the shroud of awe and the cloak of time enveloping FDR to prove convincingly how flawed his economic policies actually were, despite his good intentions and the astounding intellect of his circle of advisers. In today's turbulent domestic and global environment, eerily similar to that of the 1930s, it's more important than ever before to uncover and understand the truth of our history, lest we be doomed to repeat it.

Contents

Introduction
1 How Could Such Bright, Compassionate People Be Wrong?
2 What Caused the Great Depression?
3 What Did FDR Borrow from Hoover?
4 Why Did New Dealers Break Up the Strongest Banks?
5 Why Did FDR Seize Everybody's Gold?
6 Why Did FDR Triple Taxes During the Great Depression?
7 Why Was So Much New Deal Relief and Public Works Money Channeled Away from the Poorest People?
8 Why Didn't New Deal Securities Laws Help Investors Do Better?
9 Why Did New Dealers Make Everything Cost More in the Depression?
10 Why Did the New Dealers Destroy All That Food When People Were Hungry?
11 How Did the Tennessee Valley Authority Depress the Tennessee Economy?
12 Why Did the Supreme Court Strike Down Early New Deal Laws?
13 How Did Social Security Contribute to Higher Unemployment?
14 How Did New Deal Labor Laws Throw People Out of Work?
15 How Did FDR's Supreme Court Subvert Individual Liberty?
16 How Did New Deal Policies Cause the Depression of 1938?
17 Why Did New Deal Lawyers Disrupt Companies Employing Millions?
18 What Have Been the Effects of the New Deal Since the 1930s?
 Taxing and Spending
 Federal Deposit Insurance
 Banking Policies
 Social Security
 Farm Subsidies and Restrictions
 Tennessee Valley Authority
 Anticompetitive Laws
 Antitrust Laws
 The Federal Gold Monopoly
 The New Deal Versus Economic Liberty
19 What Can We Learn from FDR's Mistakes?
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index

Tags: qHistory, qEconomics, qBusiness, qFinance, qUSPolitics

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