A New Deal For The White House

摘要

Barack Obama will take office in times more closely resembling Depression-era America than any in modern memory. As recession bites, what can he learn from the presidents of the 1920s and 30s? Did they turn to science and technology to avert ecnonomic crisis? As Terence Kealey reveals, the surprising truth holds valuable lessons for the new guy in town.rnIn 1933, the Democrats won the US election and Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office as president in strikingly similar circumstances to those faced by Barack Obama later this month. The Roaring Twenties had been a time of easy credit, cheap money and technological advance, notably the electrification of the US, but the bubble burst on Black Thursday, 29 October 1929, and by 1933 the US economy was in recession. Thousands of banks and factories were closed, industrial production halved, unemployment was approaching 25 per cent, the Dow Jones had lost 89 per cent of its value, and the nation was in despair. What was Roosevelt to do?rnInitially, he balanced the federal budget and cut public expenditure. The Economy Act of March 1933 took $500 million annually out of the economy by reducing civil service salaries and veterans' bonuses. And Roosevelt targeted the federal science budgets.