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by Tara Overzat
With Barack Obama’s historic inauguration just two days away, the media is clamoring about Washington, D.C. and celebrating in advance. It is in fact a great moment in both American and global culture. But with the economic downturn and Obama’s ambition to sign legislature for a $825 billion stimulus program as quickly as possible following the inaugural festivities, it is important to keep in mind how history can repeat itself.
Back in 2004, two professors at UCLA, Harold L. Cole and Lee Ohanian, conducted research to discover why the Great Depression lasted so long. They concluded that government interference by the FDR administration was a prime culprit. Below is an excerpt from Meg Sullivan’s article “FDR’s policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate.”
“Why the Great Depression lasted so long has always been a great mystery, and because we 
never really knew the reason, we have always worried whether we would have another 10- to 15-year economic slump,” said Ohanian, vice chair of UCLA’s Department of Economics. “We found that a relapse isn’t likely unless lawmakers gum up a recovery with ill-conceived stimulus policies.”
The rest of the article can be found here.
Unfortunately, we a re looking at yet another “ill-conceived stimulus package.” It took the production of weaponry for our Allies in WWII to start lifting us out of the Depression. It would be horrible if it took yet another war to lift us out of this recession, instead of smart governing from top to bottom.
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