The forgotten depression : 1921: the crash that cured itself / James Grant.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Grant, James, 1946- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Depressions.

Financial crises--United States--History--20th century.

Financial crises.

History.

United States--Economic conditions--1918-1945.

United States.

Economic conditions.

United States--Economic policy--20th century.

Economic policy.

Depressions--1920.

Physical Description:

254 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm

Edition:

First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Simon & Schuster, 2014.

Summary:

"By the publisher of the prestigious Grant's Interest Rate Observer, an account of the deep economic slump of 1920-21 that proposes, with respect to federal intervention, "less is more." This is a free-market rejoinder to the Keynesian stimulus applied by Bush and Obama to the 2007-09 recession, in whose aftereffects, Grant asserts, the nation still toils. James Grant tells the story of America's last governmentally-untreated depression; relatively brief and self-correcting, it gave way to the Roaring Twenties. His book appears in the fifth year of a lackluster recovery from the overmedicated downturn of 2007-2009. In 1920-21, Woodrow Wilson and Warren G. Harding met a deep economic slump by seeming to ignore it, implementing policies that most twenty-first century economists would call backward. Confronted with plunging prices, wages, and employment, the government balanced the budget and, through the Federal Reserve, raised interest rates. No "stimulus" was administered, and a powerful, job-filled recovery was under way by late in 1921. In 1929, the economy once again slumped--and kept right on slumping as the Hoover administration adopted the very policies that Wilson and Harding had declined to put in place. Grant argues that well-intended federal intervention, notably the White House-led campaign to prop up industrial wages, helped to turn a bad recession into America's worst depression. He offers the experience of the earlier depression for lessons for today and the future. This is a powerful response to the prevailing notion of how to fight recession. The enterprise system is more resilient than even its friends give it credit for being, Grant demonstrates"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

1 The Great Inflation 11

2 Coin of the Realm 22

3 Money at War 35

4 Laissez-Faire by Accident 55

5 A Depression in Fact 67

6 City Bank on the Carpet 80

7 Egging On Deflation 92

8 A Debacle "Without Parallel" 99

9 The Comptroller on the Offensive 111

10 A Kind Word for Misfortune 119

11 Not the Government's Affair 128

12 Cut from Cleveland's Cloth 135

13 A Kind of Recovery Program 142

14 Wages Chase Prices 148

15 Shrewd Judge Gary 156

16 "A Higher Sense of Service" 164

17 Gold Pours into America 176

18 "Back to Barbarism?" 185

19 America on the Bargain Counter 192

20 All for Stability 202.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 221-242) and index.

ISBN:

9781451686456

1451686455

9781451686463

1451686463

OCLC:

881560360