(FDR - keeping it plain and simple)
Note: This is a post from last year, but considering the current state of the budget, is more than timely.
On November 29, 1935 President Roosevelt delivered an address to a crowd estimated at 100,000 in Atlanta Georgia. His subject was the Budget, Bailouts and Big Business. A reminder that, in 1933 our entire financial system was in ruins - the result of reckless investments, no oversights and shameless greed. Sound familiar?
Pres. Roosevelt: “Into the ears of many of you have been dinned the cry that your Government has been piling up an unconscionable and back breaking debt. Let me tell you a simple story. In the Spring of Nineteen hundred and thirty-three, many of the great bankers of the United States flocked to Washington. They were there to get the help of their government in the saving of their banks from insolvency. To them I pointed out, in all fairness, the simple fact that you couldn’t make bread without flour. The simple fact that the government would be compelled to go heavily into debt for a few years to come in order to save banks and save insurance companies and mortgage companies and railroads, and to take care of millions of people who were on the verge of starvation. And every one of these gentlemen expressed to me at that time the firm conviction that it was all well worth the price and that they heartily approved”.
1935 looking back on 1933. And now it's 2010 looking back on 2008.
History often repeats - more times than is necessary it seems.
