Replying to a message of Bob Klahn to Tom Walker:

 TW>> FDR and the Great Deflation
 TW>> by David R. Stokes
 BK>  ...

 TW>> Five years after Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke so
 TW>> eloquently about "fear itself" - and then began to ful-
 TW>> fill his promise of  "experimentation" (as opposed to
 TW>> an actual plan), things were really no better than the
 TW>> day he took office.  His "hundred days" of frenetic
 BK>  ...
 BK>  Actually, the economy was growing again before 1937. There was a 
 BK> second downturn in 1937. There were two main causes for that.

One of them was the military buildup.  The US laid down four new battleships
about that time, all were commissioned by 1939.  Plus existing battleships were
being renovated - Arizona was completely overhauled in 1937.  Plus US factories
were churning out arms for the European countries; yeah, the shooting didn't
start until 1939 but the buildup began a couple of years before that.


Just keep in mind that the US government had two things in 1930 that it doesn't
have today:  credit and credibility.

--- FleetStreet 1.19+