bright@Data-IO.COM (Walter Bright) (04/02/88)
Most economists today agree that one of the major causes of the Great Depression in the 30's was when Congress passed major protectionist legislation. Remember history when you propose new protectionist policies. The causes of the Depression were: 1. Comprehensive new protectionist laws. 2. Large tax increases. 3. The Federal Reserve System failed to allow interest rates to rise, and failed to make more money available to banks (which directly resulted in bank failures). 4. The stock market crash was not in itself responsible (just look at last October's crash, where's the new Great Depression?). If Americans want American business to spend more money on R+D to make them more competitive, they shouldn't tax R+D so heavily. The investment tax credit should be restored, along with favorable treatment for long-term capital gains. The US taxes R+D far more than Japan does. Protectionism is like painting over rust.
peter@athena.mit.edu (Peter J Desnoyers) (04/03/88)
In article <1519@dataio.Data-IO.COM> bright@dataio.UUCP (Walter Bright) writes: >Most economists today agree that one of the major causes of the Great ^^^^ Yeah. One of them. Milton Friedman. (sarcasm) > >The causes of the Depression were: >1. Comprehensive new protectionist laws. >2. Large tax increases. >3. The Federal Reserve System failed to allow interest rates to rise, and > failed to make more money available to banks (which directly resulted > in bank failures). >4. The stock market crash was not in itself responsible (just look at last > October's crash, where's the new Great Depression?). > I hate to argue such a pointless thing, but the error is so obvious and widespread. The Great Depression was NOT merely caused by forces acting within the boundaries of the U.S. Otherwise it might have stayed there. It was a world-wide depression. What about other factors: 1. Farm capacity in Europe that had been knocked out in WWI, and replaced by the U.S., Canada, Australia (or something like that) had just recovered, leading to a glut of many farm products 2. All sorts of linked debt and reparations payments. 3. Transition from London to New York as the chief financial market of the world. Tons of other things. A protectionist tariff on chips probably won't bring on another depression, but it will hurt all our board makers, and there are a lot more of them than there are chip makers. Instead of DAMAGING everyone else through tariffs, why doesn't the government ever try HELPING the companies that are not doing well? Things like government-coordinated planning, R&D, and other things which are standard in the military field, but unknown in civilian life. (Outside of Japan, Germany, ...) Peter Desnoyers peter@athena.mit.edu
govett@avsd.UUCP (David Govett) (04/04/88)
> Most economists today agree that one of the major causes of the Great > Depression in the 30's was when Congress passed major protectionist > legislation. Remember history when you propose new protectionist policies. > Speaking of history, protectionism didn't seem to hurt Japan's economy much in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, or 1980s. Nor has it hurt the Korean economy. (Of course they both had/have relatively free access to our market.) Isn't a more rational economic policy, then, to close our market and open theirs? FYI, Japanese per-capita GNP now exceeds ours by more than $1000 (largely attributable to exchange rate fluctuation).
ljdickey@water.waterloo.edu (Lee Dickey) (04/05/88)
This is an appeal to move this discussion out of six different news groups and into one. I suggest "misc.legal". The discussion has moved to a level that it has nothing *explicitly* to do with amiga, atari, ibm, mac, arch, etc. But it does have something to do with "legal" and economic issues. Please. -- L. J. Dickey, Faculty of Mathematics, University of Waterloo. ljdickey@waterloo.edu ljdickey@WATDCS.UWaterloo.ca ljdickey@water.BITNET ljdickey@water.UUCP or ...!uunet!water!ljdickey
richard@aiva.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin) (04/08/88)
In article <1519@dataio.Data-IO.COM> bright@dataio.UUCP (Walter Bright) writes: >Most economists today agree that one of the major causes of the Great >Depression in the 30's was when Congress passed major protectionist >legislation. Remember history when you propose new protectionist policies. Nonsense. Some right-wing economists hold this opinion. Not "most economists agree...". Now can we get this out of comp.arch? I'd redirect followups to a suitable group if we received one here, but we don't, so you'd better edit it yourselves. -- Richard -- Richard Tobin, JANET: R.Tobin@uk.ac.ed AI Applications Institute, ARPA: R.Tobin%uk.ac.ed@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk Edinburgh University. UUCP: ...!ukc!ed.ac.uk!R.Tobin