You know, that doesn’t even make sense on its own terms. Shouldn’t Orthodox Jews react to a big scary global pandemic (maybe) named “swine flu” by standing around and saying “See? See?”
I mean, the association implies that swine are, in fact, unclean and bad and bring down plagues upon those who associate with them, just like the LORD always said.
Now, Hindus taking offense at “Mad Cow Disease” would make more sense, although I suppose they could say “Well, that’s what happens when you godsless Westerners eat them.”
She’s also one of the ones who claims that the Depression ended due to World War II, a myth not only disproven but, to paraphrase Stephen Colbert, relies on the logic that “The Depression didn’t end due to the government pouring hundreds of billions of dollars we didn’t have into privately owned industries, it ended because World War II galvanized our economy by forcing the government to pour hundreds of billions of dollars we didn’t have to privately owned industries to make weapons!”
Spoonerism aside (and disregarding the fact that Smoot-Hawley was enacted under Hoover), Bachmann’s going along with one of the current attempts by Republican pundits to rewrite history because they hate FDR so much.
This has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with politics. Litzman is just trying to flex his political muscle: if he manages to get the name changed, he’ll score points with his constituents; if he doesn’t, he’ll act like he’s owed something.
The best way to deal with his type is to ignore them.
One thing you have to understand about the Israeli political system is that the executive branch of the government is essentially a loose coalition of people who hate each other.
There’s something wonderful and magical about about military spending as opposed to other uses of tax money. It’s so magical that the costs of the massively expensive occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan were kept out of the regular budget for years.
I beg you – beg you – not to flame me over my obvious ignorance here, but … I guess I haven’t learned that history as well as I thought. What ended the Depression?
I would like to say, in my own hastily mustered defence, I haven’t been making any statements about this or any topic on national television, and if I were to do so, I would check my facts first, promise!
It depends on who you ask, but the conventional economic wisdom was that the Great Depression was ended by President F. D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” programs, which included a massive amount of government spending including but not limited to government-created jobs in infrastructure construction and the beginning of Social Security.
I think the evidence is pretty strong that recovery was due to reforms in the banking, securities and monetary sectors - these happened very early in the Roosevelt term.
The rest of it is very arguable - the NRA was quickly found to be unconstitutional in the Schechter case, the Wagner Act wasn’t a well balanced labor bill and probable held up recovery to some degree by encouraging strikes, and things like the CCC were very much products of that era and don’t have much to tell us now, in an age when public works projects must be planned years in advance and built by professionals.
I dont think those reforms would have had time to work if the US had exploded in poverty-caused riots or elected some fascist or comunist totalitarian to replace Roosevelt, and, appart from any other influence on the economy, the New Deal programs helped people to live through the Depression, either giving them jobs, food and shelter or at least giving them the feeling that the government was doing something to help them.
A purely laizzes faire capitalism government would not have lasted.
That without mentioning the Keynesian Stimulus that the programs (and later WW 2) gave to the economy.
As for the effect of the New Deal, that also is debated. The theory that it made the Depression worse is held by a minority of economists and a very small minority of historians.
