Best US president of the last 100 years?

It wasn't so much the Nazis themselves, once we starting gearing up for war we bought everything painted green and the US were happy to sell it to us. Please let everyone stop any FDR conspiracy theories, it's 2019.

 

Actually they're pretty much tied.

 

A classic! And here is another one --

 

During the past twenty plus years the PF is the first political forum that doesn't debate once or every two years did FDR policies and regulations prolonged the "Great Depression" and prevented a quick recovery of the economy ?

The outcome of the debates was always the same...YES.

 

As much as I thoroughly despise FDR, for so many different reasons (particularly the way he and Churchill got the U. S. into WWII), I have to admit that the reckless, wholly-irresponsible way that stocks were bought and sold on Wall Street had everything to do with the onset of the Great Depression. Both Hoover's class of "Fat Cat" Republicans AND FDR's class of "Limousine Liberals" made piles of money from the orgy of speculation that went on unimpeded throughout the 1920's.

But did FDR's socialistic policies needlessly delay a "recovery" of the economy? Honestly, I don't know. Whatever else those policies did, they laid the deep, wide foundation for the "Welfare State" that is now a PERMANENT fixture in the United States.

One thing is for sure -- neither FDR's "New Deal" nor his "Second New Deal" were bringing about any significant recovery from the Depression. It took World War II to do that -- and I will always believe that FDR knew it, too....

 

The "Great Depression" was a worldwide depression.

The first country to recover was Germany.

I think FDR looked at Hitler and Hitler using shovels for shovel ready jobs and built the Autobahn, FDR created the CCC and built trails and bridges to nowhere.

FDR had some successes like the "Tennessee River Authority" (TVA)
https://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/history-of-the-tva

 

Amity Shlaes has an excellent book as to how FDR prolonged the depression.

 

Soon there will be a book on why there was no full recovery of the economy under Obama.

Obama like FDR meddled in the economy with regulations and restrictions on businesses and manufacturing.

 

For many years, though I had served for 15 months in the Army, based in Germany .. I was not seeing the connect of what Hitler did to our own economy.

Germany was far worse off than America over the global depression.

Also it was not stocks but a bank in NY City that started the major depression.

This country had a lot of money spent on rather useless trails and such improvements. Sure they look nicer with those rocks showing the trail, but how about trying something else at that time?

FDR did face a country dreading war and wanting to stay out at any cost.

Huge projects like the TVA and Hoover Dam of course employed a huge number of people. But not everybody was near to those two projects.

Also Germany is far smaller than the USA. I can't speak for today but when I was in Germany in the early 60s, the Autobahn was the finest road I ever drove on at the time. I live in CA but enjoy the highway 95 on the East Coast quite a bit. They got creative on that highway.

 

In today's L.A. Times there's a story about Germany's autobahn. I didn't read it, something to do with that most Germans still drive 150 MPH on the autobahn and fast cars aren't politically correct.

 

And on that note, I blame regulations for a lot of our major economic problems. Whio recalls that even Nixon was a huge fan of regulations. Such as when he bifurcated oil production into old oil and new oil.

A high school pal of mine served time in a federal prison and lost all he had at the time to that scurrilous Nixon law. Actually the law was opposed by Nixon but yet he agreed to it.

My buddy got prison time over this.

Jack Holland's father owned a used car lot around Hayward, Ca. The lot had a large black steel tank on it. Jack's dad collected used engine oil from the gas stations all around his business.

It was not making him a fortune but the price of oil then was not too high anyway. There were oil refiners that could process used engine motor oil. Jack's dad, bought a tanker truck and took the used oil to the refinery when he could fill the tanker.

Anyway, along comes his graduated son. His son took it a step further. He was buying small gas stations and calling them Holland Oil. After the oil was bifurcated into new oil, commanding the highest price and old oil resulting in the lowest price fuels, jack got the idea he could buy old oil and take it to a refinery he purchased and out of that place came new oil fuel. Jack was getting rich quickly. He donated a large sum of money to Hayward for one of their projects. I used to see him with his Jet Airplane at the Hayward Airport. Jack drove a brand new Ferrari.

The law was turning him into a criminal. Jack was arrested at his Hayward CA HQ and put into prison. That is the cost of regulations so loved by Democrats. Why the law then and so forth? We suffered very long lines to the gas station pump. And they told us to fill up on X day of the week. We could fill up only on an odd or even day. Old timers recall this major problem all over America. Jack purchased cheap oil and converted it to high price fuel.

Today almost nobody remembers this. We had more problems by far than Watergate.

We once had the 55 mph national speed limit as well.

Most forget how Nixon did try wage/price controls and why he did. And it was a lousy failure for the economy only that time by a Republican.

https://www.nytimes.com/1973/11/28/...as-nixon-ends-opposition-regulations-for.html

This is from Mises on the problem i am discussing over oil.

https://mises.org/wire/how-not-address-rising-oil-prices-lessons-nixons-price-controls

Jack Holland whom I discussed built and used this building as his HQ offices.


https://www.loopnet.com/Listing/19023873/799-Fletcher-Hayward-CA/

 

In the time I spent in Germany, I never saw Germans working on the Autobahn. It had to be a super well constructed major highway system.

 

If you are not greedy, self-centered Americans plus you do believe that we all make America, great, then you quickly realize that JFK changed the face of America forevermore. When he spit on White Privilege as he drafted CRA'64 legislation. There will never be a greater President.

Reaganomics ruined America for non-White citizens and Reagan's DEA is groundzero for the infamous "crack" cocaine epidemic which initially destroyed American ghettos in Spr'81-1984

 

They are putting a speed limit on it.

 

Well, a pretty much definitive victory for Reagan drawing decisively ahead of FDR.

 

It is okay to not include Trump. It would unnecessarily distort the discussion. Trump divides the people into fans and haters as no other POTUS.

 

I didn't put him in because his term(s) weren't over, how can you judge him if he hasn't finished yet?

 

I'm a Trump hater. I judge him on his personality. I think Trump is a poser, a greedy old man without empathy; a really dumb person, who harms the US as no other president did.

 

But apart from that he's a regular guy?

 

Trump's a regular every day normal guy, but with much more money in his pocket.

 

I hope this isn't a case of 'wealthism'?

 

Of course he is not a regular guy.

 

I remember buying cans of used oil at the gas stations during the 1960's (66-6

 

Speed limits are a slippery slope.

Next they'll be issuing speeding tickets.

Cops will have speed traps.

Then putting governors on cars.-

Then raising auto insurance premiums for getting a speeding ticket.

Then traffic schools.

 

At times, I tell Jack's story though what I know is due to my having a car wash business across E14th St from his fathers used car lot. At the time I did not make much of the car lot. Jacks son was named Jack. I did not know his father. We played on the same high school football team. The Son I am speaking of, the one put into prison.

You could hardly drive on the freeway that you would see one of the Holland Oil Company tanker trucks. Jack bought something like 30 gas stations and was raking in money fast. Jack owned a Business Jet as well. I would see him taking off at times when i was also flying one of the Pipers.

Jack had by then moved to Hillsborough, a very wealthy community back of San Mateo. I never went to his home so do not know what it was like. As an Appraiser, I did appraisals in Hillsborough and can discuss that community.

This is one of the very upper end homes there. This is Carolands and has a very rich history all on it's own. It must be a national landmark.


So Jack was operating from his HQ in Hayward a small empire. Jack was charged with fraud.

When the Feds ruin you, it is much harder to recover and resume being wealthy.

Jack had purchased close to Bakersfield a small oil refinery. Jack bought the low priced oil and by magic it was removed from the refinery as new oil. New oil was substantially higher priced than oil oil.

Imagine this if you can. Say you are a wheat farmer. And new farm land is more expensive. So the Feds create a law saying that since you paid more for land to put new wheat in, you sell it for a higher cost. All the farms with the old timers are limited to selling wheat at a low cost due to them owning the land. Nixon was nuts to sign the law. It was a formula that guaranteed some would do what Jack did. But the fact the Feds price fixed oil was wrong to begin with. It was as wrong to fix oil prices as to promote slavery. Jack never could have done what he did but for the failed law of price fixing crude oil into two price levels.

When i knew Jack, he was a teen in high school. And was a very nice person. Jack used to show up at the gas station I had my car wash business at and encourage me to play football on the team. He was a true team player. His life had to be worse due to a conviction on a federal crime.

I located a newspaper article talking of this but can't do more than post the link to the article. It is no doubt more interesting to me given I knew him.

When i think of this I kick myself for not asking him for a ride on his business jet. I think he had the Gulfstream jet.



A Gulfstream today costs around 60 million dollars.