Great Depression
Tariffs and the Specter of Smoot-Hawley
Bad trade policy helped prolong the Great Depression. Even a muted repeat of this experience is terrifying. Stock prices have tumbled, and anxieties have soared with the White House announcement...
The New Deal and Recovery: The Roosevelt Recession of 1937
By the start of 1937, things were looking up for the U.S. economy. Although the Supreme Court had struck down both the NIRA and the AAA—the chief pillars of the...
Fire! 5 Times Battleship Crews Went Into Total Revolt
Here’s What You Need To Remember: Naval mutinies aren’t common. It’s an extraordinarily risky course of action for a sailor, and the laws against it are extremely harsh. But when mutinies...
Fourteen Million Americans Lack a Bank Account. Is the Post Office the Answer?
In my last post, I discussed the experience of “postal savings” in America—its origins and how its flawed legislative design caused harm during the Great Depression. I showed that some features...
How Child Labor Ended in the United States
Today, U.S. laws and regulations bar kids under the age of 14 from working in most industries. Children under 17 may not work more than three hours on school days,...
Why the U.S. Government Seized Citizens’ Gold in the 1930s
With global financial markets in disarray, many investors are turning to classic safe havens. Gold is trading above US$1,750 (£1,429) per troy ounce, which is the standard measure – more than 15%...
America Needs a Good, Old-Fashioned Economic Depression
Describing what he called the “crack-up boom”, Ludwig von Mises, the great Austrian economist, said: The boom cannot continue indefinitely. There are two alternatives. Either the banks continue the credit...