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political factors
It was not until 1949 that [[living standards]] and peacetime [[employment]] returned to something like it was prior to 1929. The New Ordeal is evident today throughout American cities where one can see a distinct gap in the building and construction trades that took place in the decades of the 1930's and 40's. Little was built beyond quonset huts, tin structures with a semi-circular shape and a timber frame underneath. And what was built was either extremely expensive, or built by the government usually for military purposes.
It was not until 1949 that [[living standards]] and peacetime [[employment]] returned to something like it was prior to 1929. The New Ordeal is evident today throughout American cities where one can see a distinct gap in the building and construction trades that took place in the decades of the 1930's and 40's. Little was built beyond quonset huts, tin structures with a semi-circular shape and a timber frame underneath. And what was built was either extremely expensive, or built by the government usually for military purposes.
==Political factors contributing to stagnation==
When FDR was inaugurated for his second term [[national income]], [[payroll]]s, and [[industrial production]] <ref>League of Nations Monthly Bulletin of Statistics, June, 1936. Percentage change 1929 to March 1936, United States -21.8%, rank number 13.</ref> were still 20 per cent below the 1929 figure and construction was still only about one third what it had been in 1929. By June, 1937 the Treasury boasted relief payments were less than in the same period the preceding year. But this was not so. The Treasury made a practice of cooking the books and producing phony numbers. It merely shifted relief payments to other accounts. They were, in fact, larger than the year before. Stock prices declined and by September the reality could be no longer hidden. By the end of October the market crashed. The budget was running a [[deficit]] at the time $300,000,000 a month.
[[Robert H. Jackson]], Assistant Attorney General, and Secretary of the Interior [[Harold Ickes]] in December made speeches inspired by the President on the [[conspiratorial]] ''America's 60 Families.'' <ref>''New Deal Chorus'', Time magazine, [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,758849-1,00.html pg. 1][http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,758849-2,00.html pg. 2], Jan. 17, 1938.</ref> In January, John D. Biggers staggered the administration with a report Roosevelt had commissioned that stated there were 10,870,000 people out of work. <ref>[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,758790,00.html ''Two Schemes''], Time magazine, Jan. 10, 1938.</ref> Roosevelt realized that all the “pump priming” and spending $17 billion had failed. Despite the billions added to the debt, the Depression was back. He was now at the center of a tug-of-war with advocates of spending like [[Harry Hopkins]], [[Leon Henderson]] and [[Rex Tugwell]] on one side, and opponents like [[Henry Morgenthau]] on the other. DNC Chairman [[Jim Farley]] reports he had a talk on the subject with Roosevelt on March 28, 1938.
FDR told Farley he would have "to go in for pump priming or relief," then Roosevelt confessed to a difficulty that is little understood: what could he spend on? There is only a limited number of things which the federal government can spend. The federal government can build schools, hospitals, roads, institutions of all sorts. But they are built in cities, counties, states and the activities which go on in these buildings are within the jurisdiction of the states. And the continuing perpetual maintainance of such things, like payroll, is the in the purview of the states. The federal government can spend money on agricultural experimentation, on scientific research, on national parks, on power dams, etc. But in the end the outlays on these things are limited. The one big thing the federal government can spend money on is the army and navy. Roosevelt explained to Farley that he could not spend on local projects because the states and cities did not want any more buildings and institutions which they would have to support. They were having trouble enough paying the bills of those already built. Roosevelt revealed to Farley that many [[WPA]] projects approved by the government were abandoned because the states and cities could not raise the money to support them. In the 1938 Congressional elections Harry Hopkins was spending as fast as he could without any regard to utility to meet the immediate political necessities of an election but couldn't go on indefinitely. And the whole problem was complicated by pressure from within his own party to balance the budget.
The country now reached a greater crisis than in 1933. The public debt, which was $22 billion when Roosevelt took office and was a heritage of [[World War I]], now was $37 billion. Taxes had been more than doubled by Roosevelt. By April 1938 unemployment reached several thousand more than when Roosevelt was elected in 1932. This was not Hoover’s Depression but Roosevelt’s Depression. Voices began to speak up suggesting after all Hoover may have known what he was doing, but here, nine years after the Depression began the fundamental condition of the country was no further advanced than it was at the end of Hoover's three year struggle with it.
Making provision for war increased business profits. In 1936 Roosevelt had said, "If we face the choice of profits or peace, the nation will answer – must answer - 'We choose peace'. It is the duty of all of us to encourage such a body of public opinion in this country that the answer will be clear." <ref>''Getting Us into War'', Porter Sargent Publisher: P. Sargent, Boston, 1941. [http://americandeception.com/index.php?action=downloadpdf&photo=/PDFsml_AD/Getting_Us_Into_War-Porter_Sargent-1941-640pgs-POL.sml.pdf&id=218&PHPSESSID=03d3557b41f249f71349e6d730cc8498 ''No More Millionaires''], pg. 372 pdf</ref> By 1938 Roosevelt embarked on a massive defense appropriations buildup; the Administration would advance 30% to a defense contractor when placing an order. The National City Bank reported an increase of overall business profits in the year 1939 over 1938 of 63.6%, and in its December 1940 Bulletin showed for 284 companies "directly affected by war and defense program" a rise of 79.2%. The ''Wall Street Journal'' reported, "Betterment in profits was naturally more pronounced, as a rule, in those industries benefiting directly or indirectly from the European conflict." <ref>''Wall Street Journal'', May 3, 1940.</ref>
[[Curtiss-Wright Aircraft]], to enlarge its plant, received a loan of $92 million at 4%. [[I. F. Stone]] of ''[[The Nation]]'' magazine wrote,
:"Offered as a non-recourse loan . . . the government would have no claim against the Wright company if it failed to repay the loan. All the government could do in that case would be to take the factory. Since the plant would be financed entirely by the government, the government would really be taking back its own property if the Wright company for some reason wanted to drop it. ...The ''Wall Street Journal'' reported on August 2 that while the loan was for $92,000,000, 'the cost of the proposed plant and its equipment is understood to be only $37,000,000 or $38,000,000'. When asked by the ''Journal'' correspondent about 'this apparent discrepancy', Jesse Jones said, 'We don't believe it would be in the public interest to break down that total at this time'....As this is being written, the Wright contract has yet to be signed. The company is now asking for five-year amortization instead of eight. Incidentally, a vice-president of this finicky company, T. P. Wright, was assigned to the Defense Commission on June 8 to help speed up production"
The Defense Commission was the same commission that would determine and approve the terms of the loan.<ref>''Getting Us into War'', Sargent, 1941, pg. 433.</ref> ''PM'' noted "For an $18,000,000 plant to command a $92,000,000 credit from any bank, including a federal one, may make financiers blink, but that is what has been arranged". The Curtiss-Wright loan was only a little over five times the value of the plant. But Boeing Aircraft, with a plant worth $3,000,000 was awarded a loan of $32,000,000, more than ten times. And Boeing was to own it in five years.<ref>Roger Ingersoll, ''PM'', August. 9, 1940.</ref>
==References==
==References==