FDR on Foreclosures, Gold, Reflation, Labor [VIDEO]

Video Details:

These two video clips represent early New Deal policy.  The first is a radio address delivered some time after the collapse of the London Gold Conference of 1933.  The conference had been set up under the outgoing Hoover administration.  A leaked communication from President Roosevelt ended the conference.  In it, Roosevelt indicated he did not support a quick return to the traditional gold standard and that domestic considerations outweighed international. 

New Deal policy favored "reflation," essentially raising prices and wages back to the pre-Depression level.  This was to be done by various mechanisms including raising the price of gold and the cartel-like codes of the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA). Part of the idea was to relieve the burden of debtors (hence, references in the first clip to assistance to those whose mortgages were in default).  Gold policy was based on theories that people really thought in gold terms (money was seen as just a representation of gold) and therefore raising the price of gold would lift all prices proportionally.

Aimee

"Aim for History"

"It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good." The Economist, 1929

Reactions of the Wall Street Slump appeared in The Economist on November 23rd, 1929.

It gives a unique perspective of the problems on Wall Street at that time and offers forecasts of what could come (without the advantage of hindsight).

...what will be the economic effect of the slump on business in the United States?

...speculation in the United States has been so widespread that persons of all classes deceived by, in some cases, real, but in many more cases, purely paper profits from their investments, have been living beyond their means, or, at all events, mortgaging their future by purchasing luxury goods up to, or even beyond, the full limit of their incomes.

How far this will extend must at present be a matter of conjecture. A great deal must in any case depend upon the situation of the banks.

It remains to consider what effect a setback, whether great or small, in the United States will have upon other countries.

If we are justified in assuming that the setback in American industry will only be temporary, we may look forward to steady development in 1930...

Aimee
"Aim for a History Lesson"