Franklin Roosevelt : "A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor -- other people's lives. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness"

.
OpEdNews.com
Progressive - Tough - Liberal - News and Opinion
Franklin Roosevelt Explains Today's Economic Crisis
By Rodger Knigh
October 7, 2011


Franklin Roosevelt Explains Today's Economic Crisis


Some Excerpts :

These were the problems Roosevelt faced when first became president, problems he had spent his first term addressing. They were the result of twelve years of governmental neglect and a lack of regulation and oversight that allowed irresponsible banking and investment practices to bring down a financial holocaust on America. They were also the result of an attitude of acquisition spurred on by a decade of social upheaval and excess, a decade during which the accumulation of goods and wealth became not only a goal but an end unto itself. It was a decade in which greed was no longer a deadly sin; it was respected and rewarded.

The 1920s was a decade of flappers, fads and prohibition and it was a decade of prosperity but only if you were in on the fix. Businesses and industry showed remarkable gains in sales and productivity but workers got a very small share of the pie. Between 1923 and 1929, manufacturing output per person-hour increased by 32 percent but workers' wages grew by only 8 percent. Corporate profits shot up by 65 percent in the same period and the government let the wealthy keep more of those profits. Huge cuts were made in the top income-tax rates. The Revenue Act of 1926 cut the taxes of those making $1 million or more by more than two-thirds. By 1929 the top 0.1 percent of American families had a total income equal to that of the bottom 42 percent. It all had to end; it was inevitable and the beginning of the end arrived on October 29, 1929, a day that would come to be known as Black Thursday.

To a large degree the phenomenal increase in growth the country enjoyed during the 1920s was propelled by a new concept, credit. Mass production required mass consumption and credit allowed the consumer market to thrive. Credit is, however, just another word for debt and it fueled the growth only until many had accumulated so much debt that they could no longer buy the goods industry was producing. The output of American manufacturing plants was cut almost in half from 1929 to 1932. Unemployment in those years soared from 3.2 percent to 24.9 percent (over 50 percent for African-Americans), leaving more than 15 million Americans out of work. Some remained unemployed for years; those who had jobs faced major wage cuts and many could find only part-time work.

..........