The Naked Economy
May 24th, 2009 by Grandpa OddballCopyright © GetOddNews and Grandpa Oddball May 24, 2009. All rights reserved.
Revising or Ignoring History
The classic revisionist history claim is that trade wars initiated by the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act caused the Great Depression of the last century (decade of the 1930s). The critical fact, which is conveniently ignored by the free trade lobby, is that the depression started before the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act instigating excessive tariffs was passed.
Faced with this fact the lobby usually backtracks to the position that the the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act deepened and prolonged the depression. Again wrong! The Hawley-Smoot tariff was rapidly removed and in addition preexisting tariffs were also reduced with no effect on the depression in direct contrast to the claims of the free trade lobby.
Unfortunately the actual data on the Great Depression is often ignored with assumptions and ideology replacing critical analysis. However, the depression has been fully analyzed by Dr. Batra with tons of supporting historical data and, to my knowledge, he is the first to use actual economic data to support these conclusions. Also, to some extent, these conclusions are supported by Sherrod Browne’s powerful and disturbing book “Myths of Free Trade: Why American Trade Policy Has Failed, Revised and Updated Edition
This historical revision on the causes and effects of the Great Depression is just the tip of the iceberg. Dr. Batra’s book in particular presents illustration after illustration of this kind of revisionist history.
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