Thomas Sowell on The Great Depression and Economic Recovery

Sowell writes:

Guess who said the following: "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work." ...

It was Henry Morgenthau, Secretary of the Treasury under President Franklin D. Roosevelt and one of FDR's closest advisers.

He added, "after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. . . And an enormous debt to boot!"...

Far from pulling the country out of the Great Depression by following Keynesian policies, FDR created policies that prolonged the depression until it was more than twice as long as any other depression in American history. Moreover, Roosevelt's ad hoc improvisations followed nothing as coherent as Keynesian economics...

It is not a pretty story. But we need to understand it if we want to avoid the ugly consequences of very similar policies today.

source