How did Hoover’s policies help cause the Great Depression?
Hoover’s policies didn’t cause the Great Depression; they just made it worse. His push to greater home ownership, pressuring lenders to issue mortgages to those who hadn’t qualified under the usual practices of the time, led to a bubble and bank problems that could remind you of more recent times.His fiscal policy included increasing government spending from $3.1 billion in 1930 to $4.7 billion in 1932, which when adjusted for deflation was a doubling.One early response to the depression was propping up agriculture with a massive bailout. Cooperatives (government-sponsored cartels) in conjunction with “stabilization corporations” kept prices artificially high, encouraging farmers to produce more, and then proposing that farmers be paid not to plant.He strong-armed corporate America to keep wages high, despite overall deflation. With artificially high prices for labor, of course, businesses had little choice but massive lay-offs. The Davis-Bacon Act and Norris-LaGuardia Act ensured increased unemployment among minorities and non-union labor, while increasing the costs of government contracts and generally suppressing economic activity.The disastrous Smoot-Hawley tariffs hardly need description.The Reconstruction Finance Corporation, loans to state governments for aid programs, the Home Loan Bank to prop up the construction industry, and increased anti-trust prosecutions to combat what he saw as unseemly levels of competition also warped the teetering economy.And of course he presided over major increases in income and other taxes.None of these looked particularly disastrous at the time, and were generally expanded (except for the repeal of Smoot-Hawley) in the Roosevelt administration, thereby assuring the depression would last for years.
Why did people blame Hoover for causing the Great Depression?
Whether people had cause to blame Hoover or not for the Depression is arguable. That he did many things that showed appalling insensitivity during the Depression cannot be doubted. Consider just a few: at one point, Congress wanted to pass an emergency food bill that would provide food for people who were starving. Hoover vetoed it, but simultaneously signed a bill providing emergency food to wild horses on western federal land. He reasoned that the horses did not need critical individualistic moral fiber, but people do. So rather than allow the government to damage the moral fiber of dying men, he insisted that they should starve. When veterans from the Great War marched on Washington, Hoover brought in General Douglas MacArthur to restore order, even though the marchers were peaceful, disciplined, and orderly. MacArthur unleashed combat troops, tear gas, and tanks on unarmed Americans. Several were killed, along with an infant. Hoover commended MacArthur for his forceful action to put down a threatened rebellion. A few years later, the veterans returned during the first weeks of the Roosevelt administration. In a move that some considered reckless, the First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, went to the marchers camp, where she served coffee and chatted with marchers, promising to share their concerns with the President. The veterans voted to make her an honorary member, and after several weeks, dispersed peacefully, feeling that the President was hero. Throughout his tenure, Hoover insisted that the Depression was something that people largely had to endure. Approached repeatedly with suggestions for relief, he continually said "no." By his actions he convinced the nation that he did not care about the fate of the people.
Why was Hoover blamed for the Great Depression?
Because it began when he was president, and because he did not succeed in bringing back prosperity. One can debate just what he should have done, or whether anything he could have done would have had much effect, but at any rate, it happened on his watch.I would say that at least, he should have vetoed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff instead of signing it, but that’s one of those debatable questions.
How did President Hoover handle The Great Depression?
Herbert Hoover is portrayed as a do-nothing, laissez-faire ideologue who did nothing as America sank deeper into the Great Depression. The truth is the exact opposite. He strongly believed in government leadership and action in economic downturns. He was, in fact, a proto-Keynesian, believing that consumer spending has to be maintained in order for an economy to recover. To that end, he pressured businesses to keep wages high, increased government spending, and implemented public works programs. As a result, the economy could not re-adjust to the changes of supply and demand, so instead of recovering on its own, it sank deeper into the Great Depression, because of his interventions, rather than in spite of his lack of action.https://mises.org/library/americ...
What were the causes and consequences of the Great Depression?
http://iws.ccccd.edu/kwilkison/Online1302home/20th%20Century/DepressionNewDeal.html During the worst years of the Depression, 1933-34, the overall jobless rate was twenty-five percent with another twenty-five percent of breadwinners having their wages and hours cut. Effectively, then, almost one out of every two U.S. households directly experienced unemployment or underemployment. For workers' families already facing hard times, the Depression's unemployment woes wreaked unprecedented, catastrophic havoc.
What did Hoover do to attempt to help the Great Depression?
There is a ubiquitous story about the Hoover administration doing nothing or taking inadequate actions to salvage the country from the 1929 economic meltdown and allowing it to developed into the Great Depression, which is absolutely false.When the stock market crashed, Hoover — a preeminent progressive of his time (contrary to what ordinary people nowadays perceive him as) — led the federal government to deviate from the course other previous administrations (perhaps with the exception of the Woodrow Wilson administration) had taken in times of economic doldrums: the course of noninterventionism. He choose to have the government intervene in the economy to an unprecedented extent in an attempt to rescue the economy from the dreadful downturn. For example, he increased federal expenditures precipitously, initiated numerous public work projects, called on business leaders not to cut wages and raised tariffs significantly as he really thought government interference transcended free market in helping the economy recover. But it turned out that his actions, instead of terminating the depression, exacerbated it. When FDR took over, he — instead of ending the interventionist policy Hoover had inaugurated — continued Hoover’s meddling in the economy and extensively expanded the role of the government. That greatly prolonged the Great Depression rather than mitigating or ending it.So it may be right to inculpate Hoover of contributing to the severity of the Great Depression, but it is absolutely wrong to say his nonchalance and his reluctance to implement full-scale government intervention aggravated the situation and/or begot the Great Depression.If you want to learn more, I have an article written exclusively on this matter. It can be accessed from this link: The Myth of Herbert Hoover, Laissez Faire and the Great Depression.