* The Federal Reserve System arrived at a good time for the Morgans. It was needed to finance America’s participation in World War I, a participation strongly supported by the Morgans, who played a major role in bringing the Wilson administration into the war. The Morgans, heavily invested in rail securities, had been caught short by the boom in industrial stocks that emerged at the turn of the century. Consequently, much of their position in investment-banking was being eroded by Kuhn, Loeb & Co., which had been faster off the mark on investment in industrial securities. World War I meant economic boom or collapse for the Morgans. The House of Morgan was the fiscal agent for the Bank of England; it had the underwriting concession for all sales of British and French bonds in the United States during the war, and it helped finance U.S. arms and munitions sales to Britain and France. The House of Morgan had a very heavy investment in an Anglo-French victory and in a German-Austrian defeat. Kuhn, Loeb, on the other hand, was pro-German, and therefore was tied more to the fate of the Central Powers.
[nota: existe por vezes alguma ingenuidade na defesa do Capitalismo que passa por descurar os interesses mútuos que o grande business e o Estado por vezes alimentam, a criação dos Bancos Centrais foi um deles, e a participação ideológica e ingénua de Wilson - presidente progressista - foi acompanhada do interesse objectivo dos Morgan. A esquerda por outro, descura que o facto de estatismo reter capacidade de influenciar a economia e a sociedade civil, está na origem do capitalismo de Estado, pensando resolver o problema com "pessoas honestas". Para além disso, quantas as vezes, essa própria comunhão de interesses é mesmo alimentada pelo próprio estatismo de esquerda]
* The result was inflationary credit, a speculative boom that could not last, and the Great Crash whose fiftieth anniversary we observe this year. After Strong’s death in late 1928, the new Federal Reserve authorities, while confused on many issues, were no longer consistent servitors of Britain and the Morgans. The deliberate and consistent policy of inflation came to an end, and a corrective depression soon arrived.
There are two mysteries about the Depression, mysteries having two separate and distinct solutions. One is, why the crash? Why the sudden crash and depression in the midst of boom and seemingly permanent prosperity? We have seen the answer: inflationary credit expansion propelled by the Federal Reserve System, in the service of various motives, including helping Britain and the House of Morgan.
* The massive Hoover program was, indeed, a characteristically New Deal one: vigorous action to keep up wage rates and prices, to expand public works and government deficits, to lend money to failing businesses to try to keep them afloat, and to inflate the supply of money and credit to try to stimulate purchasing power and recovery. Herbert Hoover during the 1920s had pioneered in the proto-Keynesian idea that high wages are necessary to assure sufficient purchasing power and a healthy economy. The notion led him to artificial wage-raising – and consequently to aggravating the unemployment problem – during the depression.
Reliving the Crash of ’29: How Hoover’s Policies Blazed the Trail for FDR and Wrecked the US Economy by Murray N. Rothbard
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