Franklin D. Roosevelt vs. Barack Obama

The United States encountered many ordeals during the Great Depression (1929-1939). Poverty, unemployment and despair clouded the “American Dream” and intensified the urgency for solutions to address and control the nationwide damage. President Franklin Roosevelt proposed the New Deal to detoxify the nation of its suffering. It can be argued that the New Deal was ineffective due to the inability to end the Great Depression with its short-term solutions and created more problems, however; it was successful in regards to providing direct relief for the needy, economic recovery and some structural reform for the majority of the general public in the severity of the Great Depression.

Herbert Hoover, the president in office when the Great Depression hit the country, did very little to ameliorate the devastating situation. Hoover underestimated the seriousness of the crisis, misdiagnosed the causes of the problems, and clung to his beliefs in individual achievement and self-help. His corrective measures, aimed at inflation and the federal budget, were thus damaging themselves. Furthermore, he hesitated to mobilize government resources to aid Americans and instead appealed to private groups to lend a hand (Encarta). Thus Hoover’s administration did little to mitigate the impact of the Depression.

The United States entered one of the most devastating economic periods in its history after the stock market crash of 1929. The massive damage done to the quality of life of the average American during this time, known as the Great Depression, prompted a fundamental change in the attitude of the nation. The most notable change was a shift in public belief about what type of President would best serve the struggling nation. The election of Franklin D. Roosevelt completely reversed the trend of Presidents that pursued policies focused around benefitting businesses and the wealthy. Whereas leaders before him held fast in their support of big businesses, even to the point of ignoring the harm they had brought to the country, Roosevelt focused his

One of the most severe worldwide economic downturns in history is known as the great depression. Numerous amount of issues and problems were taken place between the years of 1929-1939. The great depression brought a rapid rise in unemployment, bank failure, and much more. Despite the wide range of issues, Franklin D Roosevelt was actually concerned about the depression. Roosevelt's response to the great depression was very effective because he had launched the new deal, due to the uprising problems and issues of the great depression.

In FDR’s Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression, Jim Powell discusses how Roosevelt’s New Deal actually prolonged the Great Depression and made it significantly worse economically for the people in the 1930s United States. Powell reveals a different angle of the “hero” Franklin Delano Roosevelt, his New Deal, and how he allegedly lead the United States out of the Great Depression. Throughout this book, the author analyzes the actions and repercussions of Roosevelt’s economic decisions revealing how these decisions actually made the depression significantly worse. Along with that, the author analyzes the various policies and implementations in a more in-depth way that really convinces the reader of the poor

Already in the decade the seeds of the desire for security are sewn particularly in the politics. Some historians theorize that the Depression could’ve been slowed by more immediate government intervention. President Herbert Hoover vigilantly laid groundwork of change he lacked the insight about how his common Americans were struggling to make ends meet in their own homes.Americans were in desperate need of stability through the government, but Hoover held a strict laissez faire policy having to do with direct government intervention. But all the people wanted was for the government to solve its problems (“How a Different”. His stubbornness created an even more impoverished United States seeking security that Franklin D. Roosevelt was destined to take over after his landslide election in 1932. With FDR came significant change and a plan to work the country out of their unpleasant situation (“Herbert” 2). He introduced the New Deal which in its genesis, consisted of many new laws passed and the use of the National Recovery Administration as a means of establishing and regulating minimum wages and a system of fair competition. Though after a small initial success the attempt was discarded after the Supreme Court declared them unconstitutional. Having been derailed and left to come up with a new plan of security Roosevelt’s second administration sought to boost the

D. Roosevelt in 1933 in direct response to the unemployment, poverty and economic deflation caused by the Great Depression (Romer, 2003:2), was a system of policy adjustments for which “Keynesian economics form the basis” (Henretta, et al., 2011:368). Before Roosevelt’s election, President H. Hoover had adopted policies based largely on classical economics – an essentially laissez-faire approach which favoured minimal government intervention (Dautrich & Yalof, 2013:426). The “Keynesian View” (Parkin, 2009:634), adopted by Roosevelt, “attempts to alleviate the pain of economic downturns, hold down the unemployment rate, and boost the disposable income of the worst off” (Boix, 1997:816) with government-implemented policy at its

Compare and contrast Hoover and Roosevelt’s actions in the aftermath of the Crash of 1929. How did both administrations attempt to deal with the economic stagnation, social hardship and psychological impact of the depression? What needed to be fixed and which approach proved more successful? In your essay you should address not only the underlying economic and social problems that both administrations had to deal with and the various corrective measures they adopted, but also the underlying philosophical approaches of Hoover and Roosevelt and their supporters.

This lack of complete dedication to private interest or public purpose is further displayed in Documents B and C where Hoover stresses the importance of the individual in ending the Depression while also assuring government support for job production if the situation required it. Hoover's speeches are remarkably similar to Roosevelt's speech in Document E. Here, even during the Depression, Roosevelt stressed the importance of balancing the budget unless unemployment required the government to spend money stimulating the economy. Instead of Hoover's desire to continue restricting government, Roosevelt wanted to balance the budget. The Depression created the need for government intervention and an unbalanced budget as shown in Document F. However, despite a few efforts by Hoover to create jobs, he still seemed much different than Roosevelt who insisted in 1936 that America must not go back to supporting Conservatives who protected private interest unjustly. (Document G)

The American History provides a predicament between the actions and different point of views of President Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR),in the new deal to save the American people during the Great Depression of the 1930s. In David M. Kennedy essay “FDR: Advocate for the American People” describes the difference between these two presidents, and also explains how the New Deal proposed by President Roosevelt help to deal with the chaos that whats’ happening at the time. The President FDR played an important role in bring reforms, and changing the way of life for many Americans. The New Deal stressed recovery through planning and cooperation with business, but also tried to aid the unemployment and reform the economic system.

The traditional view of Franklin D. Roosevelt is that he motivated and helped the United States during the “Great Depression” and was a great president, however, as time has passed, economist historians have begun analyzing Roosevelt’s presidency. Many have concluded that he did not help America during the Great Depression but instead amplified and prolonged the depression. Jim Powell wrote about FDR economic policies and did an excellent job explaining Roosevelt’s incompetent initiatives. Roosevelt did not know anything about economics and his advisors made everything worse by admiring the Soviet Union.

It was the year of 1934. America was fighting to come out from the worst economic crisis that the world would ever witness. It was also the year of high crime rate, low Gross Domestic Product and the lowest unemployment rate America had experienced. The Depression had paralyzed American labor forces, but there was a hope still alive in every American including J.D. Rockefeller when he said, “These are days when many are discouraged. In the 93 years of my life, depressions have come and gone. Prosperity has always returned and will again” (Rockefeller). At that time, the next president named Franklin D. Roosevelt, famous as FDR, brought Americans back to work through his confident efforts and new series of programs called ‘the New Deal’.

George Santayana, a Spanish poet and philosopher said, "Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it." This quote applies to the Great Depression of 1929 and the Great Recession of 2008. There are many similarities between the two, like the causes, the actual events, and the aftermaths. Several factors led to the Great Depression, which were the following: overproduction by business and agriculture, unequal distribution of wealth, Americans buying less, and finally, the stock market crash of 1929. The Great Recession also had similar factors leading to it, like the housing “bubble” burst and less consumer spending. In both events, the Presidents enacted programs that they believed would help the American people.

Since the beginning of time people have been affected by their income and ability to accumulate wealth. People live their lives spending or saving money based on their own expectations of what the economy might do. For hundreds of years we have studied how the economic decisions of individuals and governments affect the welfare of society as a whole. John Maynard Keynes introduced a new economic theory that emphasized deficit spending to help struggling economies recover. Keynesian economics revolutionized the traditional thinking in the science of economics. His ideas and theories were deemed radical for his time but were later enacted by some of the largest governments in the world including the United States during the Great Depression. President Franklin Roosevelt enacted the New Deal in an attempt to stimulate the economy through government spending. In this paper I will be giving background to the history economics, the Great Depression, the New Deal, the development of Keynesian Economics. This paper will focus on analyzing the following question: In an attempt to address high unemployment and economic contraction, was Roosevelt’s The New Deal efficacious in stimulating the economy and ending the Great Depression?

In 1932, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office, the citizens of the United States had possessed sufficient time to realize that they could no longer be proud, but they must take anything they could get. Therefore, the programs set up by FDR’s New Deal program were perfect for the country at the time. These programs helped the people directly, providing relief, recovery, and reform. FDR based his plans on the philosophy of Keynesian economics, where the government spends money to make money. The government gave money and jobs to those in need, who in turn, had money to spend in the marketplace. The demand for products increased, and businesses were able to hire more workers and produce more products, as well as pay more money in taxes. FDR’s plans worked because they gave money not to those who would take advantage of the government, but to those who would use it in the way the government intended it to be used. During FDR’s first term in office alone, the unemployment rate dropped 4%. Because of FDR’s success in bringing the country out of the Depression, I give him an A.