The Facts Don't Lie. Dems Are Better For the Stock Markets

Posted By: Bentree
Date: February 13, 2011   01:04:53 PM

Read this article, http://mises.org/daily/3515 and you will see that our current policies from the Obama administration are for the most part mirroring the late Coolidge and Hoover Fed mistakes and FDR was no help, FDR only exacerbated the problems by raising taxes and spending public funds as well as much more. From the article , Mises Daily: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 by Hans F. Sennholz

“Nineteen Thirty-One was a tragic year. The whole nation, in fact, the whole world, fell into the cataclysm of despair and depression. American unemployment jumped to more than 8 million and continued to rise. The Hoover administration, summarily rejecting the thought that it had caused the disaster, labored diligently to place the blame on American businessmen and speculators. President Hoover called together the nation's industrial leaders and pledged them to adopt his program to maintain wage rates and expand construction. He sent a telegram to all the governors, urging cooperative expansion of all public-works programs. He expanded federal public works and granted subsidies to ship construction. And for the benefit of the suffering farmers, a host of federal agencies embarked upon price-stabilization policies that generated ever larger crops and surpluses, which in turn depressed product prices even further. Economic conditions went from bad to worse, and unemployment in 1932 averaged 12.4 million.
In this dark hour of human want and suffering, the federal government struck a final blow. The Revenue Act of 1932 doubled the income tax, the sharpest increase in the federal tax burden in American history. Exemptions were lowered, "earned income credit" was eliminated. Normal tax rates were raised from a range of 11/2 to 5 percent to a range of 4 to 8 percent, surtax rates from 20 percent to a maximum of 55 percent. Corporation tax rates were boosted from 12 percent to 133/4 and 141/2 percent. Estate taxes were raised. Gift taxes were imposed with rates from 3/4 to 331/2 percent. A 10 percent gasoline tax was imposed, a 3 percent automobile tax, a telegraph and telephone tax, a 2¢ check tax, and many other excise taxes. And finally, postal rates were increased substantially.
When state and local governments faced shrinking revenues, they, too, joined the federal government in imposing new levies. The rate schedules of existing taxes on income and business were increased and new taxes imposed on business income, property, sales, tobacco, liquor, and other products.
Murray Rothbard, in his authoritative work on America's Great Depression (Van Nostrand 1963), estimates that the fiscal burden of federal, state, and local governments nearly doubled during the period, rising from 16 percent of net private product to 29 percent. This blow, alone, would bring any economy to its knees, and shatters the silly contention that the Great Depression was a consequence of economic freedom.
However, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt assumed the presidency, he, too, fought the economy all the way. In his first 100 days, he swung hard at the profit order. Instead of clearing away the prosperity barriers erected by his predecessor, he built new ones of his own. He struck in every known way at the integrity of the US dollar through quantitative increases and qualitative deterioration. He seized the people's gold holdings and subsequently devalued the dollar by 40 percent”.

Dose this strike a familiar note? Remember this is the 20's 30's and 40's. The policies that created these problems are still for the most part in place. Capitalism will overcome stupidity by eliminating the stupid as it is even attempting to do now. Has it now been overwhelmed by shear numbers, ignorance, ideology, and stupidity? Probably.

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Posted By: Bill Gee
Date: February 14, 2011   01:36:35 PM

Your article is interesting, but your analysis is pretty simplistic. It fails to take into account general economic trends, which are not under anyone's control - especially the President!

Perhaps it would have been better if you had divided your data by "TERM" rather than just by whoever was in office at the time. Then you would have found profound growth in 2004 under Bush Jr.'s first term and then a decline during his second term, mostly in 2007-2008.

Therefore, your article is interesting, but VERY misleading.

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