Posted by
Defend America on Wednesday, February 03, 2010 6:16:56 PM
How to Make a Weak Economy Worse
FDR's war against business showed that a president must choose between retribution and recovery.
You
get the feeling President Obama is girding for battle with the
financial sector. In last week's State of the Union address, he
promised to regulate the industry. On Jan. 21, he was blunter, warning
that he would not let companies that enjoyed "soaring profits and
obscene bonuses" block his financial reforms. "If these folks want a
fight," he said, "it's a fight I'm ready to have."
This declaration of war echoes that of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In
1936, late in his campaign for a second presidential term, FDR spoke of
the challenges of "business and financial monopoly, speculation,
reckless banking." Wall Streeters and businessmen hated him, he said,
adding that "I welcome their hatred."
Then Roosevelt escalated: "I should like to have it said of my first
administration that in it the forces of selfishness and the lust for
power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second
administration that in it these forces met their master."
Mr. Obama might want to stick to a moderate approach. FDR's war
against business played to the crowd, but it hurt the economy. While
monetary policies impeded recovery in the late 1930s, it was the
administration's assault on companies and capital that ensured the
Depression's duration.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703808904575024981110918808.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion