I will just say that it scares me!
Obama's and the Democrate stimulus bill will pass. It may get tweaked a little here and there but will eventually pass. The T word, Trillion, scares me. How many times in the passed few months has someone asked for a bailout by the government? Is it not likely before Obama's eight years are o er wll will ask for another bailout.
I am not all that much up on history, but have did a little research. After World War I Germany tried to issue money to pay off it's war debt. Ultra-Ultra inflation occured. It was said, that where currancy was once carried from bank to bank in brief cases, it had to be carried by wheelborrow, then by trucks. Not much daner of it being stolen as it was practicaly worthless. A farmer could take a load of produce to town and pay off the mortgage on his farm with the proceeds.
The only way to correct this situation was to drasticly re-value the Mark.
With the collapsed economy Hittler got his way into power. The only way to restore the economy in his view was to engage in war.
I was not very old during the depression years here, but looking at history does put some meaning and reason to what I do remember.
I believe that the old economic law that production is needed to create demand is still true. When Roosevelts became president there was no welfare system. To be prosperous a person had to have a job and produce something, or provide a service.
At first Roosevelt did try to follow the previous administerations example and try to have a balanced budget. He taxed processers to increase farm income. He asked manufactures and business to increase wages and shorten the work week to provide more jobs in order to give people money to people to buy again. In his inaugeral address Roosevelt asked congress and the peole to give him executive power equal to wartime. Roosevelt was given more power then any president since Lincoln's time.
He stabilized the banks and dropped the gold standard. He called in all of the gold and made it illegal for people to even own gold, then thirteen months later he increased the value of gold to $18 an ounce. Remember, the government owned all the gold in the US then.
His program, while it had many flaws, did work to some extent. In his first four years, unemployment was reduced from 25% to l5%. Then a way was found to challange his programs in court. The Supreme Court declared some of his programs unconstitutional. The policies changed more to the direction of Keynesizion. In 1937 the economy slide back, unemployment shot back up to 19%. The economy did not recover until the start of World War II.