The economic downturn that began in mid 1937 had ballooned unemployment from 14 percent in 1937 to 20 percent in 1938. In the spring President Roosevelt proposed a new $5 billion program of government spending to reverse the decline. The recession bottomed out at that moment and output increased 58 percent by 1940. He also appointed Thurman Arnold as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the anti-trust division of the Justice Department on the theory that the Great Depression was a consequence of monopoly power. A Civil Aeronautics Act established the Civil Aeronautics Authority with the power to regulate airline routes and fares. In June the Congress passed and the president signed the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 that established a minimum wage of 40 cents an hour, a forty hour week, and time-and-a-half for overtime, and banned most employment of children.

In the off-year elections of the Roosevelt second term the president's party suffered its first losses since 1928. In the Senate elections the Democrats lost 6 seats to the Republicans. In the House elections the Democrats lost 72 seats, the Republicans gained 81 seats, and the Progressive Party lost 6 seats. In the 76th Congress the Democrats maintained a commanding 68-23 majority in the Senate and a substantial 262-169 majority in the House.

all years | 1929 | 1930 | 1931 | 1932 | 1933 | 1934 | 1935 | 1936 | 1937 | 1938 | 1939

1929-1939: “A Decade that will live — in stupidity.”

Why Stuck on Stupid?

Seventy years ago the leaders of both US political parties turned away from the policies that had created an economic powerhouse we call the Roaring Twenties. For ten long years Americans suffered through wrenching economic dislocations: deflation, inflation, a four-year economic contraction, endless unemployment, mindless political experiments, and ruthless attacks on businessmen for political gain as their leaders stayed Stuck on Stupid.

Today, after a twenty-five year economic boom, Americans are once more faced with a political elite that wants to monkey with success. It wants to raise tax rates. It wants to restrict trade. It wants to increase government power.

It’s time to look back and remind ourselves how it came to be, starting in 1929, that America got itself Stuck on Stupid. Otherwise it could happen again.

— Christopher Chantrill

SOURCES

Cook Partisan Voting Index
gives a quick look at the partisan rating of each congressional district.. There are currently 10 Democratic-leaning districts represented by Republicans and 71 Republican-leaning districts represented by Democrats.

Measuring Worth - GDP Series for US and UK
includes GDP and chained GDP for US; GDP and chained GDP for UK

Republicans: Still Happy Campers
Year after year, Republicans are happier than Democrats. Even in 2008

American National Election Study 2004
Berkeley's control panel

University top 200 in full
Harvard is still #1

Gross Domestic Product by State
from Bureau of Economic Analysis

UAH monthly satellite record
UAH satellite temperature record on global temperatures

The world's 50 most powerful blogs
at least as far as the lefty Guardian is concerned.

IRS Income Tax Share Table
the rich pay the income taxes

No Freedom Without Economic Freedom
US is fifth on Economic Freedom Index this year. Is that good enough?

Liberal-Conservative Self-Identification
from 1972.

US Current Dollar and "Real" GDP (xls)
US GDP series from 1929 to present

US GDP Percent Change from Preceding Period (xls)
US GDP change from 1929 to present

US Money Supply Historical Series
money supply from 1867 to 1970; Historical Statistics of US: X. Financial Markets and Institutions: Series X-415; p.992 (pdf)

Historical US Federal Spending
Table No. HS--47. Federal Government -- Receipts and Outlays: 1900 to 2003 (xls).

Education

“We have met with families in which for weeks together, not an article of sustenance but potatoes had been used; yet for every child the hard-earned sum was provided to send them to school.”
E. G. West, Education and the State

Mutual Aid

In 1911... at least nine million of the 12 million covered by national insurance were already members of voluntary sick pay schemes. A similar proportion were also eligible for medical care.
Green, Reinventing Civil Society

Government Expenditure

The Union publishes an exact return of the amount of its taxes; I can get copies of the budgets of the four and twenty component states; but who can tell me what the citizens spend in the administration of county and township?
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

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