Tag Info

Bernanke has sort of answered this question himself, in his Remarks On Milton Friedman's Ninetieth Birthday. Friedman argued that the depression was basically caused by the Fed's contractionary monetary policy, and Bernanke seems to be in broad agreement with him, going so far as to say: Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official ...

FDR was not the first president to come to power during a financial "panic" (aka: Recession or Depression). However, he was the first one after the advent of modern economics, and he was listening to the new economists. Economically, banning private holding of gold had the effect of propping up the US currency. Normally in hard times (and I think 1933 ...

It is a politically charged issue and it really depends on the economic and political side of the fence you're on (T.E.D gave the Keynesian view). As someone who's libertarian on most financial/economic policies, I see it as detrimental and that we're still feeling the negative effects of it today. As Alan Greenspan put it in Gold and Economic Freedom... ...

I discussed this exact action in a fair bit of detail in my answer to Gold Confiscation Act of 1933 . You may want to go check that out. To bring that answer full circle, taking the USA off the Gold Standard wasn't the only economic system change the US government made at that time. The Gold Confiscation Act had the effect of propping up the money supply. ...

I am not a Marxist Political Economist. I am a Marxist labour historian. When I relate to economic history, I can only really talk about the way in which capitalism actually functions (with reference to the truth systems of academia) from a "firm level" or "proletarian" perspective. This question would require a Marxist political economist to answer it in ...