The Forgotten Depression: 1921: The Crash That Cured Itself

The Forgotten Depression: 1921: The Crash That Cured Itself

By the publisher of the prestigious Grantâ€™s Interest Rate Observer, an account of the deep economic slump of 1920â€“21 that proposes, with respect to federal intervention, â€œless is more.â€ This is a free-market rejoinder to the Keynesian stimulus applied by Bush and Obama to the 2007â€“09 recession, in whose aftereffects, Grant asserts, the nation still toils.

James Grant tells the story of Americaâ€™s last governmentally-untreated depression; relatively brief and self-correcting, it gave way to the Roaring Twenties. His book appears in the fifth year of a lackluster recovery from the overmedicated downturn of 2007â€“2009.

In 1920â€“21, Woodrow Wilson and Warren G. Harding met a deep economic slump by seeming to ignore it, implementing policies that most twenty-first century economists would call backward. Confronted with plunging prices, wages, and employment, the government balanced the budget and, through the Federal Reserve, raised interest rates. No â€œstimulusâ€ was administered, and a powerful, job-filled recovery was under way by late in 1921.

In 1929, the economy once again slumpedâ€”and kept right on slumping as the Hoover administration adopted the very policies that Wilson and Harding had declined to put in place. Grant argues that well-intended federal intervention, notably the White House-led campaign to prop up industrial wages, helped to turn a bad recession into Americaâ€™s worst depression. He offers the experience of the earlier depression for lessons for today and the future. This is a powerful response to the prevailing notion of how to fight recession. The enterprise system is more resilient than even its friends give it credit for being, Grant demonstrates.
Country USA
Brand Simon & Schuster
Manufacturer Simon & Schuster
Binding Hardcover
ItemPartNumber black & white plates
ReleaseDate 2014-11-11
UnitCount 1
UPCs 884136360029
EANs 0884136360029

Country	USA
Brand	Simon & Schuster
Manufacturer	Simon & Schuster
Binding	Hardcover
ItemPartNumber	black & white plates
ReleaseDate	2014-11-11
UnitCount	1
UPCs	884136360029
EANs	0884136360029

The Forgotten Depression: 1921: The Crash That Cured Itself

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