U.S. History

The Supreme Court overturned the guilty verdict against Arthur Andersen Company, writes William Anderson, but it came too late to save the firm.

FDR’s stated New Deal purpose was to keep work weeks short and to extend minimum wages which were extremely high. But, production is what makes demand possible and what increases purchasing power, not federal mandates.

No President should leave a citizen in doubt about his person or property. However, this original comforting view is contrasted with more modern theory of the Presidency in which Wilson held the President to be the “unifying force of the country”. He represents no constituency, but the “whole people”.

The standard tale of labor history in American is largely false. Unions did not cause a rising standard of living. Employers were forbidden to encourage union membership, but they could compel union membership.

The Mexican War 1846-48 involved unpaid debts to Americans, a desire for West coast territory, and the issue of Texas whose independence was not recognized by Mexico. The Southern boundary was in dispute also.

The 1920s had difficulties, but the depth of the Great Depression was in 1931. Any theory of boom-bust events must ask why so many entrepreneurs made terrible errors in a cluster. Why do busts hit capital goods industries harder than they do consumer goods industries?

Up until the 1930s there was freedom of contract between workers and employers by which they could make, accept, or reject any offers of remuneration. With the 1930s comes the idea of exclusive bargaining agents decided upon by a majority of workers, and compulsory to all.

Chris Westley explains that the only thing new about New Deal policies was their name and the people administering them.

Murray Rothbard, in this classic essay originally published in 1991, offers the most "pure" proposal of all: private mintage, 100 percent reserve banking, circulating coins, full convertibility.

For interesting stuff, see MarketWatc