Best post I've read today on Herbert Hoover and our financial woes

Jeff Perren over at Shaving Leviathan details Herbert Hoover's actions that led to the Great Depression. Sadly, our government seems to be following his footsteps.

Herbert Hoover and the New Deal

Thomas DiLorenzo, Phd. in Economics at Loyola, lectures on Herbert Hoover and the myth that free-market capitalism was the cause of the Great Depression.

HT: Liberty Pen

Are you miserable enough?

Mark J. Perry at Carpe Diem provides us the following graph detailing the Misery Index. According to Perry, despite all the gloom and doom in the popular press, it looks like things aren’t as bad as described. We could be living though the malaise of the 1970’s or even the Great Depression of the 1930’s.

The Coming Depression?

From the The Los Angeles Times :

"Dysfunctional capital markets, frantic central banks, stressed-out consumers, fear and uncertainty -- all are alarming echoes of the global economic cataclysm of the 1930s."

"Which raises the inevitable question: Could another Great Depression be lurking over the horizon?"

"TV news programs show grainy footage of Depression-era bankers as reporters tick off grim economic statistics. The Federal Reserve invokes powers it hasn't used since the 1930s. Critics of President Bush's economic policies are emboldened to use the H-word: "Hoover." '

Comment: This article points out that the reason a depression is unlikely is due to a Fed that takes an active role when a crisis hits like the Bear Stearns incident. The article doesn’t really outline that when the Fed does bail out failing firms, the taxpayer is the one who is usually on the hook. And some of those taxpayers (some of them struggling to make ends meet) may never benefit from government bailing out a large investment bank. The fed holds a 30 billion dollar liability from Bear Stearns. That's me and YOU.