Great Depression Quotes

"The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy.” Milton Friedman

"Listening to the liberals, you'd think that the 1980s were the worst period since the Great Depression, filled with suffering and despair. I don't know about you, but I'm getting awfully tired of the whining voices from the White House these days. They're claiming there was a decade of greed and neglect, but you and I know better than that. We were there." Ronald Reagan

"Once upon a time my political opponents honored me as possessing the fabulous intellectual and economic power by which I created a worldwide depression all by myself." Herbert Hoover (which of course, he didn't do by himself -- but he certainly contributed to it!)

"Prosperity cannot be restored by raids upon the public Treasury." Herbert Hoover (though he behaved during the beginning of the Great Depression as if it could be).

"Blessed are the young for they shall inherit the national debt. " Herbert Hoover
(Some concepts are not so new after all.)

"Not only our future economic soundness but the very soundness of our democratic institutions depends on the determination of our government to give employment to idle men." Franklin D. Roosevelt (and where did the government get the money to employ those idle men...)

Much comparison is made between what's happening in today's Economy and the Great Depression. What were things like then: Production fell by more than 50%, disposable income was down 28% and stock prices were down 90%. We are not anywhere near Great Depression problems now! Unemployment rose to 25%, with almost 13 million unemployed in 1933 (up from less than 2 million in 1929).