Herbert Hoover or Barack Obama: “the major forces of the depression now lie outside of the United States”

Who said the following, Herbert Hoover or Barack Obama?

The origins of this depression lie to some extent within our own borders through a speculative period which diverted capital and energy into speculation rather than constructive enterprise. Had overspeculation in securities been the only force operating, we should have seen recovery many months ago, as these particular dislocations have generally readjusted themselves.

[…]

In the larger view the major forces of the depression now lie outside of the United States, and our recuperation has been retarded by the unwarranted degree of fear and apprehension created by these outside forces.

Don’t know? Then, who said this, Herbert Hoover or Barack Obama?

Some of the challenges that we’ve had over the last several months actually have to do with the fact that in Europe we haven’t seen them deal with their banking system and their financial system as effectively as they needed to.

I think these two quotes sound pretty similar. They both blame Europe for the world’s economic problems. The inference is that all would be well if it weren’t for those Europeans.

One quote is from 1930, the other is from just yesterday.

P.S. – there’s a reason we use the term recession and don’t use the term depression anymore.

5 Comments
  1. Aaron R says

    This got me thinking about differences between the GD and the current crisis.

    Is it possible that the much smaller government (relative to GDP) gave them considerably less fiscal space to deal with the downturn? The government would have been 3 – 4 times smaller relative to GDP back then. They may have never had a chance even if they had run obscene deficits like Paul Krugman prescribes.

    I am not pro- large government, but it may be an advantage they didn’t have back then. Either that or it simply gives us more rope with which to hang ourselves.

  2. Wasabi says

    So next year’s presidential election will be between Hoover2.0 and Coolidge2.0. This represents an acceleration of the decline of the US into a bipolar neo-feudal society of rentiers and debt-serfs.

    1. David Lazarus says

      That is my thought as well. The problem is that the solutions that will help the country are simply not even being considered, in fact the consensus is for polar opposite policies. Only in the US would voters actually vote against their own self interest.

  3. jacek says

    “P.S. – there’s a reason we use the term recession and don’t use the term depression anymore.”

    You’re talking about difference in scale betweent those two events, or you have sth else on mind?

  4. Warren Murdoch says

    @Edward, what is a panic and how is it different from a recession?

Comments are closed.

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