Ben Stein Dreemz
Give Economists Their Credit F
or most of the era of civilization, mankind suffered through occasional economic downturns. These would be called “recessions,” or “slumps,” or
even “depressions.” Men and women would lose their jobs, often lose their homes, and their hopes. This would lead families to sorrow, to despair, to
suicide, and to all of the horrors that our parents and grandparents lived through and told us about. The one that started in 1929 and led us up until Dec.
8, 1941 — the sneak attack by hundreds of Japanese dive bombers and torpedo attack craft, the “date that would live in infamy,” as Pearl Harbor was called — was probably the beginning of the worst industrial depression of all time. At some points in 1933, fully one fourth of the employment force of the U.S. was involuntarily unemployed. Men and women literally went hungry. This was the year that America went from a reliably Republican nation to a reliably Democrat one. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected president an
unheard of four times. In his inaugural speeches, he went right into the heart of promises of a syndicalist nation, where a central government, a la Mussolini, planned every detail of what life would be like. From the weekend high school football games and the prom, the government would take care of our lives. If you were to read the speeches of FDR from March
1933 to his last inaugural, shortly before his demise in April 1945, you would see an America aiming straight for socialism with no regrets. But then something great and glorious happened. Some
men and women who had read and studied economics as it had been studied and preached by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, and David Ricardo took a stab at what had happened to cause the Great Depression — and what had to be done so that it would not happen again.
The problem was “liquidity.” Banks had lent money to
local businessmen and women. Those borrowers became unable to repay the loans. Then other banks became unable to repay their loans. What to do? Some of the truly great geniuses of the
whole field ransacked their brains and came across a simple but beautifully eloquent approach: guarantee bank deposits. That way, if you had your shekels in a bank that failed, that one account would be gone for a short time, but the government would make you whole and you could go on with your life and your business. Bank lending, the hinge upon which the whole
economy hung, would be secure. At first, the amount that the government insured was only $2,500. But it rapidly rose, and soon almost every deposit was guaranteed. This turned out to be a work of genius — guaranteeing
bank deposits. The staggering sums that the government was shelling out to finance the war also boosted in a huge way the liquidity of the whole society. This never stopped. It probably will not stop —
certainly not in my life. This is called deficit spending. It’s not a bad thing when it allows us to win our wars. We will never repay the borrowing, and it will not hurt anyone. We will just keep repaying and reborrowing and repaying, and we remain a free and prosperous society. The main thing is that we have jettisoned that old
bugaboo: lending to failed banks. That anchor weighed us down and promoted no good cause. But let’s remember this: Economists, generally considered a dead weight on society and worth only making me a famous small-time “star,” have come up with a genuinely, spectacularly great addition to make mankind happier. No more Great Depressions and a much happier
America. This is no small thing. Economists, we salute you!
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40 NEWSMAX | OCTOBER 2024
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