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182 of 207 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Should be Mandatory Reading for Every Citizen!, January 24, 2009
I'll confess to not being a fan of big government so I was prepared to be receptive to a harsh assessment of the New Deal. However, I was not prepared for the scathing indictment armed with facts, logic, primary source quotes and data that constitute this powerful book.
The book is hard to put down even as you recoil in horror at the lunatic economic policies of the era and the blatant turn to fascism. If you tried to design a program to extend the Great Depression indefinitely, you could have done little better than FDR did. The economic incompetence and unintended consequences which are detailed in all their frightening glory is mind boggling, but it is only part of the story.
The book also demonstrates the endemic political patronage and vote buying that resulted from the concentration of money and power in the hands of the federal government. State and local politicians who supported Roosevelt were rewarded with a cascade of federal dollars, those who opposed him were frozen out and inevitably lost subsequent elections.
Citizens who opposed FDR were set upon by the IRS or the NRA. The use of government power to persecute and intimidate dissension is chilling. There are several quotes or diary entries from even Roosevelt's supporters and cabinet members that point out both the insanity of the policies and the dangers of FDR's abuse of power.
With our government setting out on what's been called the "New New Deal", this book should be required reading for every citizen so they can understand both the failure of the New Deal as an economic cure and the abuse of power and vote buying that the huge transfer of money and independence from the private sector to the public sector caused and will undoubtedly cause again.
PS- As of the writing of this review, it appears you either love this book or you hate it as there are only 5 star reviews and 1 star reviews. However, if you read the reviews, you'll notice that those who have given it 5 star reviews have clearly read the book as they either quote from it or recount specific stories or facts mentioned in the book. On the other hand (again, as of this writing) the 1 star reviews don't mention a single specific point in the book and attempt to refute it. It seems pretty clear that they haven't actually read the book. If they have read it (which I doubt), they choose to review it with ad-hominem attacks, claims of bias (a historian with a world view??!!...I'm shocked!)and irrelevant rants about Bush etc. Please, do us all a favor.. if you want to attack a book at least read it and make specific logical refutations, don't simply pile on trite cliches and emotional appeals that have nothing to do with the author's scholarship.
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240 of 279 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Definitely a Raw Deal, December 7, 2008
Burton Folsom's New Deal or Raw Deal? is a timely, informative and captivating read on the destructive economic policies on the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Administration. This book is a valuable addition to the growing number of books on how government intervention, not free markets, plunged the United States deep into the Great Depression.
Folsom corrects many common misconceptions about the New Deal and the Great Depression in this book. The first misconception is that President Hoover was a principled advocate of laissez-faire capitalism. In fact, Folsom argues, Hoover was a big government Republican. Consider the Smoot-Hawley Act, which imposed unprecedented tariffs on thousands of imported items. Not only did this drastically increase the prices of U.S. imports (hurting U.S. consumers), but it also encouraged European nations to impose retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports (hurting U.S. producers.) Furthermore, Hoover responded to the early onset of the Great Depression with disastrous economic regulations. He endorsed the Federal Farm Board, which issued over $500 million in cotton and wheat subsidies only to have the massive surpluses dumped on an oversaturated world market. Hoover also supposed the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, which spent over $1.5 billion on bailouts to failing banks and industries.
Another major point of Folsom's book is that many of FDR's programs were struck down as unconstitutional. These include the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) and the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA). The NIRA imposed economy-wide price controls and production regulations on domestic manufacturing. The AAA was similar in spirit, except it focused on price and production controls on agriculture. The extent of the controls evidently became so detailed where, for example, the purchasers of a live chicken were required by law to blindly reach into the coop to randomly choose a chicken. Customers were not free to choose whichever chicken they fancied. Recognizing the absurdity of this, one of the Supreme Court justices quipped "what if the chickens are all on the other side?" before the Supreme Court unanimously ruled the NIRA unconstitutional.
Folsom also emphasizes the crushing tax burdens imposed by the New Deal. Under FDR, the highest income tax rate was 79%, meaning that four out of five earned dollars was confiscated by the government! According to Folsom, FDR also seriously entertained the idea of imposing a 99.5% income tax rate on all who earned over $100,000 in income. Flippantly justifying this, FDR joked that nobody in his administration would ever make that kind of money. Under FDR, the national debt grew more in the 1930s than it grew in the previous 150 years of the existence of the United States. Putting it in other words, Folsom indicates that if $100/minute was deposited into an account the day Columbus discovered North America up until FDR took office, there would not be enough money in this account to fully defray the costs of the New Deal.
The last major point that I will reiterate is the extensive level of corruption of the FDR administration. According to Folsom's research, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) offered large government handouts to whichever lobbyists ingratiated themselves most with the administration. FDR used the WPA to make or break the careers of public officials, depending on whether they supported him. This corruption rose to such an overt and perverse level that officials at the WPA used to cheerfully greet callers with "Democratic headquarters!" The Hatch Act, which forbids government employees from using their office for political activity, was passed in response to these activities.
If you like FDR, reading this book will shock you. If you already despise FDR, reading this book will reveal how truly appalling his administration was and how in many respects, FDR was like a gangster. In addition to the above, you will learn about how FDR used the IRS to intimidate political opponents, such as the esteemed banker Andrew Mellon as well as FDR's unscrupulous court-packing scheme. You will learn about the sheer arbitrary nature of FDR's economic controls. This cannot be better exemplified than how, when advised to increase the unit price of gold from 19 cents to 22 cents, FDR proposed 21 cents since it was his "lucky number".
Anyone interested in politics and economic history should read this book, before history repeats itself.
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90 of 112 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Please, no more new deals, November 15, 2008
Folsom has delivered a book that is tough to put down. While flying to a conference the other day, I was reading New Deal or Raw Deal and telling my friend (who was reading another book) how great Folsom's book is and talking about some key points brought up by Dr. Folsom. I left my seat for a moment; when I returned, my friend was reading Folsom's book, and I had a hard time getting it back.
Roosevelt helped create major rifts between those who were wealthy and those who were poor and middle class. He even indicated he did that to win the election rather than pursue what was best for the country. He tried to stack the Supreme Court and used the IRS to harass his major critics.
I've had to remind myself repeatedly that this is not a fictional work and that it is about a president in the USA rather than a dictator in some distant country. For example, the New Deal's birth of the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 was bizarre. "It allowed American industrialists to collaborate to set the prices of their products and even the wages and hours that went into making them. Leaders in all industries, from steel and coal to shoulder pads and dog food, were invited to sit down and write codes of fair competition that would be binding on all producers in their industry. Laborers were often allowed to organize, and anti-trust laws were suspended." (pp. 43-44) The result was that many big companies could easily take business from smaller companies because the larger companies controlled the price fixing. An example Folsom uses is Jacob Maged of Jersey City, NJ. After 22 years of running a successful small business pressing clothes, Maged's reputation was one of quality work at a reasonable cost. The NRA then demanded that he charge 40 cents to press a suit instead of 35 cents. He was sent to jail and given a $100 fine for refusing to increase his prices.
Folsom has thoroughly documented the facts in the book, including several pages of sources.
By the end of the book, it is no mystery whether Roosevelt orchestrated the New Deal or a raw deal.
This book is incredibly timely. The most disturbing part is it seems like we are headed in the same direction today.
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