American Great Depression

Critical yet supportive review of the 1978 book by former Wall Street Journal associate editor Jude Wanniski, The Way the World Works.  Explains and analyzes Wanniski's key arguments:  1. The role of the Smoot Hawley tariff in starting a deflationary global trade implosion in the 1930s.  2. The role of very high marginal tax rates in keeping poorer countries from becoming (as they later did after top tax rates were cut in half) "emerging" economies.

This paper analyses the story "Secret Life of Walter Mitty". Mitty's daydreams are  analysed in relation to 1930s real-life characters and materials such as Alexander Flaming, hydroplanes, Red Baron and Waterbury Trial. The topic also touches on women's impact on society in the Great Depression and WWI and WWII

The Great Depression of 1929 devastated the U.S. economy. Half of all banks failed. Unemployment rose to 25  percent and homelessness increased. Housing prices plummeted 30 percent, global trade collapsed by 60 percent and prices fell 10 percent. It took 25 years for the stock market to recover.

In this original research paper, I explored the relationship between the end of the Great Depression and the economic boost that came from the start of World War II. What I endeavored to prove is that the Great Depression did not end with America's involvement in World War II, but the change in the way both government and the American people saw both their habits in spending as well as the economy as a whole.

The narrative of the American Liberty League embodies the last stand for traditional Jeffersonian Constitutionalism, marking an inflection point whereafter the tide of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal would forever change America’s understanding of the constitution. In 1816, Thomas Jefferson writing to Samuel Kercheval famously said “The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every citizen in his person and property in their management.”  No philosophy could better encapsulate pre-progressive American thought than this one. However, with widespread social change altering the fabric of American identity, people started to view their contract with government cast under the light of effective freedom and social responsibility. The culmination of this shift in thought was the ratification of the New Deal which undermined strict constitutionalism in order to form the proto-welfare state that would see America through the Great Depression. As with every major action in policy, an equal and opposite reaction quickly took place among conservative America. At the forefront of this reactionary movement was the American Liberty League (ALL), formally created in 1934 to “uphold and preserve the constitution” in times of crisis.  Its founding members, notably Democratic National Committee Chairman John J. Raskob, former Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Democratic National Committee Jouett Shouse, 1928 Democratic presidential candidate Al Smith, General Motors Executive Alfred P. Sloan, and the infamous DuPont family, were united in their faith in American individualism and thus vehemently opposed to the changes propelled by the New Deal.  The League drew its members largely from those who had thrived in the laissez-faire world of past days, and consequently was painted as a coalition of wealthy, corrupt businessman who were determined to protect their fortunes by perverting the constitution. This sentiment was greatly emphasized by Franklin D. Roosevelt who, shortly after the League’s founding, declared it a “lover of property.”  By the end of 1936 the American Liberty League was a laughingstock, jokingly dubbed the “American cellophane league” by Postmaster Farley as “first, it’s a DuPont product and, second you can see right through it.”  However, the League’s true motivations were far more complicated than contemporary critics were led to believe. By investigating the history of the American Liberty League’s operations, we are offered a window into not only the most infamous New Deal reactionary movement, but a glimpse at the shifting notions of the role the constitution should play in ages to come.

This 1975 adaptation of Nathaniel West’s celebrated novel has in course of time fallen into a state of anonymity. This article reassesses its languishing reputation and finds much of merit in the film’s thematic and visual treatment of the novel.

Non fu il liberismo a far cadere valore e produttività, fu al contrario la caduta di valore e produttività a instillare nella testa degli uomini l'esigenza di cercare qualche espediente, uno qualsiasi pur di sfuggire all'incubo della caduta del profitto: ecco perché si è rispolverato il liberismo, già morto e sepolto fra le due guerre (ammesso e non concesso che sia mai esistito), ovvero l'illusione che si potesse, con il miracoloso mercato, con le leggi selvagge della "mano invisibile" di Smith che tutto aggiusta, rimediare alla dittatura inesorabile della legge del valore.