Knowing, Remembering, and Using History

I’m not a historian. Nor am I an economist. So the only previous economic repression similar to our Nation’s current economy that I know anything about is the Great Depression, and I have only heard tales about those times from those who experienced it and from the teachers who taught about it in my youth.

I understand that there were other economic slumps, some in the late 1800’s, others earlier.  I guess it’s part of the life of an economy. It goes up and down.

I wonder about our current economy, and our lives during its recovery. I feel a need to know our country’s history. It may help in decisions to be made in the polling both come November.

Ours is an economy recovering from recession. An impressive recession. And we have now in this election the choice to alter the Nation’s economic policy to satiate the vision of the conservatives that shrinking debt is the course that will lead us to economic growth and stability. Would policy based primarily on austerity of services, debt reduction, and reduced taxes impact the course of this current repression in ways similar to the strong policy shifts levied upon the economy by the right wing leaders during 30’s?

Did congressional action in the mid- to latter half of the 1930’s help or hindered the economy of the Depression? What did congress do to limit government during the greatest depression of all? How did our lawmakers act to shape policy resulting in suppression of government-driven economic stimulus in the mid-1930’s? And what were the results of that policy? And why, then, did the government returned to spending? And how did it spend? To support domestic well-being? Where did we nurture prosperity? How did the federal government create jobs during the ‘30s? Did it do so by ordering services, building infrastructure, parks and edifaces that have lasted generations?  Or was it only growth enkindled by industry that mushroomed to meet the challenges of war that resolved that Greatest of Depressions?

How much should I know about that era that would help me understand clearly the most appropriate course of action to maintain recovery of this current economic rebuilding? I wonder if we could improve our involvement with the evolving world today in ways that generate capitol in a synergistically efficient and powerful manner, without resorting to war-time economics? I sure would like to avoid war. I sure would like to see true peacetime recovery.

School me. I don’t know enough…

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