No, in fact, you have blamed the Free market and Laissez-Faire policies themselves. Now you are trying to backtrack. You can't seem to come to grips with the fact that when Capitalism is meddled with, it becomes less effective. Before the Fed, the United States had enjoyed the greatest growth it ever had in its history. After the progressives brought in the Fed the progress had been stunted. The normal business cycle was not allowed to continue because of government (socialist) interference.

When the economy is left in the hands of individual, each attending to their own self interests, free to choose as they will, that is when society benefits the most. Not with this command from the top type structure you defend.

"The proud and unfeeling landlord views his extensive fields, and without a thought for the wants of his brethren, in imagination consumes himself the whole harvest ... [Yet] the capacity of his stomach bears no proportion to the immensity of his desires ... the rest he will be obliged to distribute among those, who prepare, in the nicest manner, that little which he himself makes use of, among those who fit up the palace in which this little is to be consumed, among those who provide and keep in order all the different baubles and trinkets which are employed in the economy of greatness; all of whom thus derive from his luxury and caprice, that share of the necessaries of life, which they would in vain have expected from his humanity or his justice...The rich...are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society..." - Adam Smith

The following is from wiki on the Great Depression and is listed as opinion with out much citation, however, it seem relevant here:
Thus, the personal political and policy viewpoints of scholars greatly color their analysis of historic events occurring eight decades ago. An even larger question is whether the Great Depression was primarily a failure on the part of free markets or a failure of government efforts to regulate interest rates, curtail widespread bank failures, and control the money supply. Those who believe in a larger economic role for the state believe that it was primarily a failure of free markets, while those who believe in a smaller role for the state believe that it was primarily a failure of government that compounded the problem (H here: I believe this a bit simplistic view propagated by people like Jafo).

It is Heraclitis' position that the Great Depression was caused by both events because the bankers who caused the problems with the free market running wild were the same ones running the Fed that failed to decrease interest rates. It is also my position that they failed to decrease interest rates out of self interest driven by greed (after all they were only human).

It is Jafo's position (at least my interpretation of your opinion after trying many times to actually get you to state your position with some clarity) that the socialist government that had been brewing behind the backs of the three most recent Laissez Faire Presidents (Harding, Coolidge and Hoover) and a radical Laissez Faire / Trickle Down Treasury Secretary (Andrew Mellon) were able to perpetrate the coup of the century by getting the Federal Reserve (administered by Laissez Faire Bankers) to meddle with the Free Market by not doing anything at all! They did not lower the interest rates! That is the mechanism of meddling, not doing anything at all! They did not drop money from a helicopter!

You Decide?

I think it is pretty clear what I said. I really don't need the great and magical Jafo to intrepret my words!

Uhh, and when was the free market "running wild"? Under the Feds watch? No, as I have said all along. If the free market was running wild, there would have been no great depression.

Try again..

Another faulty assumption based upon flawed ideology miraculously transformed into a Jafo-fact.

It is Heraclitis' position that the Great Depression was caused by both events because the bankers who caused the problems with the free market running wild were the same ones running the Fed that failed to decrease interest rates. It is also my position that they failed to decrease interest rates out of self interest driven by greed (after all they were only human).

Oooh, how clever.. Do you often use homophobic insults to make your scientifically open minded and wisdom filled points?



"The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie--deliberate, contrived, and dishonest, but the myth--persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." ~ John F. Kennedy

Unusual choice of emotional response to catastrophic death and destruction. Are you also "happy" we committed genocide on Native Americans? So much better them than us?

At least as scientific as yours...

Vastly more scientific, in my opinion. Science requires an open mind. And while you both possess extensive knowledge, Goofus has wisdom. The former is essentially useless for philosophical thinking and discussion without the latter.

Whatever Jacko. You assume that people take what you say as fact. Most of us are smarter than that.

I know we all know this with the exception of Jafo but overvaluing investment assets is commonly referred to as an economic bubble. Here are three instances in American history when economic bubbles (in bold below) created havoc in America's economy (note the second directly led to the Great Depression).

The cause of the Panic of 1907 (it is from wiki):
The 1907 panic began with a stock manipulation scheme to corner the market in F. Augustus Heinze's United Copper Company. Heinze had made a fortune as a copper magnate in Butte, Montana. In 1906 he moved to New York City, where he formed a close relationship with notorious Wall Street banker Charles W. Morse. Morse had once successfully cornered New York City's ice market, and together with Heinze gained control of many banks—the pair served on at least six national banks, ten state banks, five trust companies and four insurance firms.

This is H talking: Of course we all now they go on to control about 60 to 70% of the copper at a price of about $70 a share when all the sudden out of nowhere the other 30 to 40% of copper shares showed up in the hands of small time speculators on the streets of New York and the price dropped to about $10 a share. It was a Copper bubble.

The cause of the 1929 Panic that led to the Fed behaving badly (it is from Wiki):

The crash followed a speculative boom that had taken hold in the late 1920s, which had led hundreds of thousands of Americans to invest heavily in the stock market. A significant number of them were borrowing money to buy more stocks. By August 1929, brokers were routinely lending small investors more than two-thirds of the face value of the stocks they were buying. Over $8.5 billion was out on loan, more than the entire amount of currency circulating in the U.S. at the time. The rising share prices encouraged more people to invest; people hoped the share prices would rise further. Speculation thus fueled further rises and created an economic bubble. Because of margin buying, investors stood to lose large sums of money if the market turned down—or even failed to advance quickly enough. The average P/E (price to earnings) ratio of S&P Composite stocks was 32.6 in September 1929, clearly above historical norms. On October 24, 1929, with the Dow just past its September 3 peak of 381.17, the market finally turned down, and panic selling started.

The late 2000’s Great Recession (from wiki)

According to the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research (the official arbiter of U.S. recessions) the recession began in December 2007. US mortgage-backed securities, which had risks that were hard to assess, were marketed around the world. A more broad based credit boom fed a global speculative bubble in real estate and equities, which served to reinforce the risky lending practices. The precarious financial situation was made more difficult by a sharp increase in oil and food prices. The emergence of Sub-prime loan losses in 2007 began the crisis and exposed other risky loans and over-inflated asset prices. With loan losses mounting and the fall of Lehman Brothers on September 15, 2008, a major panic broke out on the inter-bank loan market. As share and housing prices declined, many large and well established investment and commercial banks in the United States and Europe suffered huge losses and even faced bankruptcy, resulting in massive public financial assistance.

A global recession has resulted in a sharp drop in international trade, rising unemployment and slumping commodity prices. In December 2008, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) declared that the United States had been in recession since December 2007.[ Several economists have predicted that recovery may not appear until 2011 and that the recession will be the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s.[13][14] Paul Krugman, who won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, once commented on this as seemingly the beginning of "a second Great Depression." The conditions leading up to the crisis, characterized by an exorbitant rise in asset prices and associated boom in economic demand, are considered a result of the extended period of easily available credit and inadequate regulation and oversight.

It seems to me Jafo has now graduated! He is no longer the village idiot, he is now...(drum roll please with a crash cymbal at the end)

THE GRAND POO BAH AND IMPERIAL WIZARD OF STUPIDITY!

Uhh, and when was the free market "running wild"? Under the Feds watch? No, as I have said all along. If the free market was running wild, there would have been no great depression.

Try again..

At least I know how to use quotes, DOOFUS..

Before the creation of the Federal Reserve, Friedman and Schwartz noted, bank panics were typically handled by banks themselves – for example, through urban consortiums of private banks called clearinghouses. If a run on one or more banks in a city began, the clearinghouse might declare a suspension of payments, meaning that, temporarily, deposits would not be convertible into cash. Larger, stronger banks would then take the lead, first, in determining that the banks under attack were in fact fundamentally solvent, and second, in lending cash to those banks that needed to meet withdrawals. Though not an entirely satisfactory solution – the suspension of payments for several weeks was a significant hardship for the public – the system of suspension of payments usually prevented local banking panics from spreading or persisting. Large, solvent banks had an incentive to participate in curing panics because they knew that an unchecked panic might ultimately threaten their own deposits.

It was in large part to improve the management of banking panics that the Federal Reserve was created in 1913. However, as Friedman and Schwartz discuss in some detail, in the early 1930s the Federal Reserve did not serve that function. The problem within the Fed was largely doctrinal: Fed officials appeared to subscribe to Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon’s infamous ‘liquidationist’ thesis, that weeding out “weak” banks was a harsh but necessary prerequisite to the recovery of the banking system. Moreover, most of the failing banks were small banks (as opposed to what we would now call money-center banks) and not members of the Federal Reserve System. Thus the Fed saw no particular need to try to stem the panics. At the same time, the large banks – which would have intervened before the founding of the Fed – felt that protecting their smaller brethren was no longer their responsibility. Indeed, since the large banks felt confident that the Fed would protect them if necessary, the weeding out of small competitors was a positive good, from their point of view.

In short, according to Friedman and Schwartz, because of institutional changes and misguided doctrines, the banking panics of the Great Contraction were much more severe and widespread than would have normally occurred during a downturn. …

Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve. I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression. You’re right, we did it. We’re very sorry. But thanks to you, we won’t do it again.

Like I said before: Whatever Jacko.

Not that what you said made any sense but note it was people acting crazy under Laissez-faire conditions which were fueled in each case by the the greed of people with Laissez-faire philosophies! Again, I think it is pretty clear if you are not the Grand Poo Bah as stated above.

Bernanke, head of the Fed agreeing it was the Feds fault, along with Nobel prize winning economist Milton Friedman stating the GREAT depression would have never happened. Of course, we could instead believe the sources of Kevin or Heraclitis IF THEY HAD ANY of similar repute..

Jafo, if you would read, I agree it was the Feds fault for the same reasons they do...THE FED FAILED TO DROP BUCKETS OF MONEY FROM HELICOPTERS!!!!!!!!!! They did not lower the interest rate until it was too late dumb ass!

You absolutely don't have a clue!

You don't have a clue.. You have been saying that is a fault of CAPITALISM. Get it dipshit? You are WRONG, the fed is not a part of free market capitalism. Case CLOSED!