Bruce wrote: Davidf - you are missing a very important aspect of basic economics in your praise of FDR. The basic fact is that you must have a healthy and dynamic industrial sector to generate the necessary taxes and jobs to pull the economy out of a recession. <SNIP>

Margaret thatcher had a wonderful saying "The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money"

Dear Bruce,

That is nonsense. The US had a healthy and dynamic industrial sector in the 1920s. Due to a low wage economy it lacked buyers for its output. A glut of unsold goods led to the Depression.

Thatcher equated meeting human needs with socialism. FDR was not a socialist but an enlightened capitalist. Margaret Thatcher’s statement was not wonderful but stupid. She did not want to put more resources into addressing social inequities. The end of that path can be a Lenin or Hitler as increasingly impoverished people look to a messiah.

However, Margaret Thatcher was not as stupid as her saying. She did not dismantle Britain’s National Health Service. Her statement appealed to the neoliberal mindset that Rudd criticised. She knew better. She knew she would be out of office if she destroyed the NHS.

I did not claim that FDR’s policies pulled the US out of the depression. The war did it. I claimed that the consequences of FDR’s policies were US dominance after WW2 and a more decent country.

The depression would have been worse without FDR’s intervention.

Dovif2 wrote: After the War, there was the re-building of Europe and Asia, and America got even richer

Very little of what FDR did worked

Dear Dovif2,

Most of the effects of FDR’s policies were felt after WW2. Social security, an educated nation, TVA, economic dominance and a creative outpouring after the war were consequences of FDR’s policies in the 30s. He left a wonderful legacy.

FDR’s social policies improved the lives of many Americans including me.

Thatchernomics left a wider gap between rich and poor. People are currently suffering from her legacy of inadequately regulated financial markets.

Alan Moran wrote
"it was only the onset of World War II that brought economic recovery."

And how would you describe the re-armament leading to and during WW2 other than as a Keynesian recovery? Unless a command war economy is just another example of unbridled capitalism.

That's the problem when you let ideology get in the way of empiricism. There's all these annoying facts that just don't fit.

You are totally incorrect davidf; America did not have a vibrant economy due to low wages at all – If you go back to Harvard – and the implementation of Taylorisms Scientific Management systems- or the pseudo science – Yes there were very low wages for the worker, just as there was now a de-centralised mechanism to employment and skilled manufacturing and less skilled – and the addition of the battalions of parasites, who's functions where to respond to a greater voice dictating the terms and how things were done.

This was not ever done to gain the most productive venture, it was a typical Socialist paradigm of perceptions, and as true of then as it is now, the Fascist looting and exploitation of employees and employers being the host to fund the ever growing etalons of Useless Idiots ready to exploit the newly found methods of the equivalent of Armed robbery- and the victim feeling good about it.

It was in place long before Bolshevism was deployed to the toilet bowl for some to dissect and implement.

The economy is based on people with ability and who have values and knowledge- Socialism is about the pillaging and plundering of the loot.
The twentieth century version of The Viking raids or any Barbarian looting, but with the laziness – Valueless – simplistic psychological manipulation and paradigm shifts.
That simple, and that is democracy now days- and the representation of what is known in biblical terms – End of Days.
Socialism is the ego of the metaphysical God of self appointed fools.

All- wrote: You are totally incorrect davidf; America did not have a vibrant economy due to low wages at all.

Dear All-,

It would be good if you had read what I wrote. I wrote that the US had a vibrant economy. I did not say it was due to low wages. There was a glut of goods produced that people could not buy. That was certainly correct. It is unnecessary to address the rest of your diatribe.

david f, Its probably time to throw Edwards Deming into the ring for good measure,as quality production is not really understood in this sheltered workshop, maybe someday we will end up in a position enhanced with a quality,productive and competitive position and maybe early developments encompassing reason,logic will deliver a productive society with something of value apart from the raw materials.

The Queensland labor governments election promise to deliver 3000 additional green jobs @ $19,000 pa each pulling weeds out down at the local creek will not be a sustainable career path even if a certificate/degree is the promised result.

Dallas wrote: The Queensland labor governments election promise to deliver 3000 additional green jobs @ $19,000 pa each pulling weeds out down at the local creek will not be a sustainable career path even if a certificate/degree is the promised result.

Dear Dallas, The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) under FDR was not a sustainable career path. However, it did a lot of good. It not only gave the young men who possibly would have been otherwise unemployed purpose and meaning in their lives, but it also helped conservation efforts in the United States. “Pulling weeds out down at the local creek” is a denigration of what might be useful work in preserving the environment.

I met an old man in a US National Park in California who proudly showed me a stone bridge he had worked on as a young man in the CCC.

Every job for a young person does not have to be part of a sustainable career path. It can be a valuable learning experience that a person who has a cut and dried career path misses. There is nothing wrong in taking a job to help make the world a little better even if it is not part of a sustainable career path.

I have three children. One is a highly regarded professor of anthropology. Another is a research biochemist. A third is an educator who works with culturally deprived children getting them in the habit of reading and opening the world to them.

All three had a period of over five years where they tried different things before they settled down to their current occupations. I think their lives are possibly much richer and their appreciation for the segments of society that they probably never would have come in contact with otherwise probably makes them better citizens than a person who has never experienced anything beyond his or her sustainable career path.

The election promise sounds great to me. I hope young people will take advantage of it if Labor wins.