Triton4Me,
I'm just stating my opinion as well. I have nothing against you, but since you called me out, and then said that my ridiculous comments were unsubtantiated, I've decided to provide you with some facts to back my opinion up. With regards to who's generation is better, I don't think one is any better than the other. I'm not saying that everyone your age is ignorant to the world around them, I know there are just as many people my age who haven't a clue what goes on in this world or even care. I don't even consider myself that much older than you. I do feel that that there is an overwhelming disparity in political philosphies in academia. This goes back to when I was in college as well. I don't concur with your statement that it is tougher to get through college now as opposed to previous. If you work your butt off, you will get to where you want to be regardless. You've provided your side and now I've provided my side, let's just leave it at that. Have a Disney day! :wave:
Here are just a few key points regarding Roosevelt from my paper.
Most believe that the New Deal, which was borrowed from Hoover, rescued the country from the Depression. Under FDR, unemployment averaged over 18 percent from 1933-40.
FDR knew nothing about how wealth was created, when he developed the National Industrial Administration it was an enormous contradiction. It sought to keep wages high to give consumers greater purchasing power, but it also established hundreds of legally sanctioned, industry wide cartels, which were allowed to establish “standard” wages, hours of operation, and minimum prices. The minimum prices meant that businesses would be largely prevented from underselling each other, and everyone’s price had to be at least the prescribed minimum. The artificially high wages led to continued unemployment.
His genius now moves on to food. With millions in this county with no jobs and starving to death, FDR decided to pay farmers to for cutting back on production. He though that subsidizing the farmers and decreasing the supply would raise farm prices. But now he had to deal with the existing supply of food. He decided to destroy it. 6 million pigs were destroyed and 10 million acres of cotton were destroyed. He destroyed crops to keep prices high. The newly established Dept. of Agriculture was established and decided that the U.S. was not producing enough food to sustain its population. It took a special kind of idiot to conclude that the best way to remedy this would be to make food more expensive.
Investors and businesses unsure of what he would pull next, and what punitive measure would be placed on them, simply stopped investing perpetuating the depression, and wages suffered with his boost to organized labor, like the Wagner Act of 1935.
The public sector jobs that he created simply took capital from the private sector and destroyed it, along with jobs.
FDR’s administration was one of the most corrupt in history. Most of his public works projects were distributed to states who voted for him. His administration also politically intimidated most public sector workers into voting for him and contributing monies to his campaigns if they wished to remain employed.
In the 1930’s the Supreme Court said that the National Industrial Recovery Act and the Agricultural Adjustment Act were unconstitutional. So infuriated was FDR, and knowing that 6 of the 9 justices were over 70, he proposed that once a justice reaches the age of 70 he had to resign or retire. This would allow him to add 6 more justices and preserve his New Deal programs.
The New Deal didn’t get us out of the Depression, what did was the return to normal conditions following WWII and the removal of uncertainty that had haunted business and investors for most of the FDR years.
During the nearly two and a half years that the U.S. was out of WWII, FDR portrayed himself as trying to keep us out of the war, but the truth is he was making secret pledges with the British and provoking Germany to attack us, and then lying about it.
FDR sought to change the Neutrality Law that prohibited us from selling weapons to nations at war. In 1940 FDR gave the British 50 American destroyers in exchange for 99 year leases on several military bases in the western hemisphere. This was all done illegally and without congressional approval and thus provoking the Germans.
FDR began placing warships around Iceland tracking German subs for the British. Churchill even said that they were working together to do all they could to provoke an incident. Hitler actually ordered his ships not to fire on American warships, knowing that this is how the U.S. had entered WWI. Later FDR even tried to frighten the American people with claims that the Germans were planning to invade South America and launch an attack on the U.S. Few bought this, and it was admitted that the whole plan was fictitious.
In 1937, when Japan and China went to war, he sold weapons to China, and in 1941 cut off supplies of key goods to Japan including oil, increasing the chance of Japan entering the war. He never explained to the American people the implications of his policies. FDR refused to negotiate with Japan about withdrawing from China and suspected an attack was imminent. It was, on Dec. 7th.
