“The Forgotten Media Purges of the Great Depression,” Steve Penfield, October 29, 2019.
“Herbert Hoover’s Great Depression,” Murray Rothbard, from Chapter 7 of America’s Great Depression.
“Gone with the Wind: An American Epic,” Dr. Donald W. Miller, April 17, 2007. Banned by Nazis, Soviets, and progressives, this American epic is loved by everyone else.
Fascism Comes to America, Part 7: Governor Roosevelt, 1928-1932, Ralph Raico.
As economist Roger Garrison has recently analyzed the matter, there are two basic questions: (1) How did the boom of the 1920s turn into the Depression? and (2) Why did the Depression last so long? Leaving aside the second question for the time being, and dealing with the first, one thing is clear: no “anarchic,” unfettered private-enterprise system existed in America in the 1920s. In fact, a government-sponsored and government-supported institution had been created in 1913 whose very function was to supervise the economy and ensure its stability. That institution was the Federal Reserve Board. As late as the spring of 1929, the politician-financier Bernard Baruch complacently assured the country that, with the Fed giving us “coordinated control of our financial resources and a unified banking system,” there was nothing to fear. The boom could go on forever.
“What Causes a Great Depression,” Murray Rothbard, 1969.
“The Lessons of 1920-21 Depression,” Joe Salerno, July 13, 2016.
1934, from Gary North,
In 1937, McMillan, which had published Keynes’s book, and which had previously published the 1934 book by Lionel Robbins, The Great Depression, published a book by three authors, which analytically dealt with the causes of the Great Depression: Banking and the Business Cycle. It blamed central banking. But this book never got any traction, and it remains forgotten today. Fortunately, the Mises Institute makes it available free of charge or in a conveniently printed format, but almost nobody remembers it. Almost nobody knew about it in 1937.
1946
from Gary North,
Within a month of VJ day, American labor unions started striking. This wave of strikes escalated. In short, people stopped working at wartime wage rates. There were more strikes in 1946 than ever before in American history. Price controls were removed in October of 1946. Prices skyrocketed briefly, but then the rate of increase subsided as production came on-stream in 1947.
“Depression” wasn’t used. The term used was “panic.” In 1929 and into the ’30s, the term that was favored was “Depression,” which is a more calming term than “panic.” It’s just a depression, don’t worry about it. 25% of unemployment. The event received an even further reduction in meaning in the 1950s, like a recession. In later years, there was an attempt, who made it, Alfred Cahn, Carter’s Economic Advisor, called it a sideways waffle. You might think that Depression, Panic, and Recession are about business cycles. They are connected. He makes the point. The focus was on the unsustainable boom of the 1920s inspired by monetary growth that couldn’t last. The Austrian period is about the unsustainable boom. It’s got to turn sour at the end. The business of the downturn. It’s what gives the cycle its cyclical quality.
San Gabriel Tutor 