Summary
Amity Shlaes on her book, The Forgotten Man - Interview
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Extract
Remembering 'the forgotten man'.
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Amity Shlaes, author of a new history of the Great Depression, talks about Franklin D. Roosevelt's baleful economic legacy, the growth of government, and the death of classical liberalism. WITH THE POSSIBLE exception of the Civil War, no event has transformed American politics more fully than the Great Depression, From the stock market crash of z929 through U.S. entry into World War II, the country's economy floundered tragically, with the unemployment rate typically in the high teens. First under the misguided and generally ineffective policies of President Herbert Hoover and later under those of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the federal government became increasing interventionist, at times attempting to dictate all aspects of economic production. When accepting the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in 1932, Roosevelt proclaimed "a new deal" for the American people. Once in office, he began radically transforming the federal government while seeking to ameliorate the nation's woes. He pushed subsidies for farmers, changed the banking system, and created the National Recovery Administration, which regulated many aspects of business until it was declared unconstitutional in 1935. Through the c...See the full content of this document
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