Talk:Economic history of the United States

Multiple studies on the effects of the New Deal?

The Great Depression section includes the following statement:

"One survey showed that 49% of economists felt that the New Deal lengthened and deepened the depression,[44] while another showed that only 5% of professional historians and 27% of professional economists felt the same way.[45]"

I checked out the two citations (44 and 45). They are not two separate studies, but the same study, published by Robert Whaples of Wake Forest University. Citation 45 provides the raw results of the survey, while citation 44 is an opinion piece on money.usnews.com that references the survey, though it misrepresents the results a bit. The actual results of the survey show that in response to the statement "Taken as a whole, government policies of the New Deal served to lengthen and deepen the Great Depression," among professional economists, 27% generally agreed, 22% agreed but with provisos, and 51% disagreed. Among professional historians, 6% agreed, 21% agreed with provisos, and 74% disagreed. The USNews piece lumps the first two categories together and says that 49% of professional economists simply agreed with the statement.

I haven't edited the article, but have left that task to someone more suited to it, in case anyone is so inclined. Just wanted to point it out. KMarlinKopp (talk) 19:33, 26 July 2011 (UTC)KMarlinKopp

For Shame!!!!

Wikipedia is supposed to be an unbiased historical perspective, not a conservative hack job.

It lists the great Depression as 1929 - 1939 and Contrasts it with the Roaring 20's in the subject category. The actual truth of the matter is, the economic shrinkage involved in the Great Depression was well underway in 1929, and the fact was only hidden by the vast loan to replace lost income growth in the 20's, the growth of the financial and real estate sectors caused by moving dollars from real production to "Activities of the rich", and the cranking up of leverage. When Loans were called, leverage was forced to unwind, and bubbles crashed, the only possible outcome was depression. The following article discusses the imbalances we saw back then and that we are seeing the same extremes today.

http://www.google.com/search?gcx=w&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=plutocracy-reborn-wealth-inequality-gap-largest-since-1928

What is not as widely known about the depression is it didn't have to end in 1932 when it did. People were still out of work through most of the 30's, but this had nothing to do with the causes of the Great depression continuing through the 30's as the wikipedia article implies, and everything to do with the fact that the period of *true growth* in the 1930s (unlike the faux growth of the twenties) was occurring from a very low starting point. In fact, the growth from 1933 - 1939 is faster than any other growth in the last century in the US with the possible exceptions of a few short periods in the 40s and 50s.

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctpnpa/growth.pdf

If you look at the above graph or you go to the government's own GDP data, you can see that calling the double-digit growth that occurred in the 30's "Depression" is about like calling fire cold.

In fact, it is the 20's that should be included as part of the depression from a cause perspective, because you can see that the 2.5% stated real growth rate in GDP (source, this article):

• is nothing compared with the double digit growth between 1933 and 1939
• includes asset bubbles in stock and real estate in that modest growth number
• The policies that created the great depression were set up in 1920 by Warren Harding and crew. The deflationary cycle is a result of labor glut/pay shortage, completely opposite of an inflationary depression which is a shortage of effective labor. Policy and growth both turned on a dime in late 1932, so it would make sense to divide here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.113.69.97 (talk) 06:47, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Recession triggered by 9/11 attacks?

The claim that many people blame the recent recession on the 9/11 attacks seems more like an opinion. With out a credible citation, it should be edited out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Diggitydan16 (talk • contribs) 15:40, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

2004 talk

I've added an economic history of the US from 1929 until 1994. I'm sure some might quibble with a point or two, but I think most of it is accurate - 1929 to the early 1940's seems to be an economic period (Depression to WWII), the mid 1940's to late 1960's and early 1970's seems to be another period (Keynes/Bretton Woods) and the mid-1970's to mid 1990's seems to be another era (Friedman, monetarism). I think most would agree major shifts in the economy happened that can space out these periods - and I think conservatives and liberals would agree - a conservative like Daniel Yergin as well as a liberal like Paul Krugman both seem to share this concept of time periods. Even Marxists see the West's adoption of Keynesianism as an important development in capitalism. -- Lancemurdoch 05:15, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Post-Civil War destruction in the South

"The devastation of the South was so great that poverty was inevitable." I don't think that any economists find this view plausible anymore in light of the post-WWII growth of Japan and Germany and the Solow growth model. I think, rather, most economists theorize that the supply-side problems in the South after the war had to do with: the fact that plantations were no longer as efficient without gang labor; and that free men chose a higher leisure to work ratio than they would have been given as slaves, so that the South's output declined accordingly. (There were demand side issues with cotton, of course, but I'm addressing the devastation thesis.)

If no one objects, I'll update that paragraph accordingly, once I finish exams and have more time. Until then, food for thought... Dr. Ebola 03:01, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

I think the argument is still plausible. If you find an alternative view, please include it, but I do not think the negative effects of the Civil War on the South can be easily dismissed. Japan and Germany are two cases of rebounds from war, but I do not think there successes are solid evidence that such recovery is inevitable or even likely. Those two cases are in a different time period, and both countries received considerable foreign assistance. The Solow model also indicates that income will be partially determined by worker productivity which in turn is determined by capital stocks. The devastation of the South destroyed factories and railroads, so the Solow model would seem to support the idea that destruction led to poverty. That's not to say fast recovery would not have been possible, but I don't think that there's a convincing argument for cutting out this viewpoint yet.--Bkwillwm 04:08, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

don't overlook the wealth effect: land prices were much lower. and prices: Cotton prices were much lower. of course Germany and Japan were in WORSE shape that South in 1945; they recovered because they rebuilt industries--they already had the human capital--engineers and skilled workers. South did not have knowledge of factories, no engineers few skilled workers--all it had was farmers. Even so the southern farmers probably were as well off as farmers in Europe in 1870s--just far lower $ than Yankees after 1865 down to 1960s when they caught up. than farmers in the US North. Rjensen 04:37, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Bias?

"One should take note that during this period, government statistical formulas were changed to produce happier results, and government statistics should be considered carefully before being accepted." - is this comment necesary? Also, it seems that Reagan period is a bit optimisitic (but of course, the matter is controversial)

It's true, though I'd like for someone to put it in more encyclopedic terms without loss of concision. For instance, in 1995, the CPI formula was changed to measure the rental value of owner-occupied housing. This rises far slower than other housing understating the largest part of inflation, housing costs. Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich admits the formulas were changed, and claims that with the old measurements, our GDP growth rate, announced as 4%, is actually closer to...zero. It's sad, but it's true. I do not pretend my edits were entirely NPOV, and as I asked in edit summaries, please fix it.

By the way, you might want to consider registering. It'd be great to know you by a name.

And if the Reagan Era seems a bit optimistic, need I remind everyone that the previous article boiled down to that the economy prospered under Democrats and stagnated under Republicans? - Calmypal 04:10, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)

Actually, the whole article is biased and opinionated. All one has to do is to look at the stock chart. One can clearly see that the stock market started taking off in 1982 and has taken off ever since. Every Presidential Candidate since Reagan has followed Reagan's approach to economics for the most part (of course, Alan Greenspan had been head of the fed since Reagan for the longest run, is this even mentioned?). Is there even a mention of Milton Friedman? Is there a mention that Democrats have always really wanted high taxation and socialism, something that would ruin the economy? 70.197.48.37 16:12, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

The stock market is a very good measure of the economy. It is just one measure and not a very good one at that. Much better measures are real GDP growth, per-capita real GDP, real median income, savings rates, capital investments rates, etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.128.15.156 (talk) 19:43, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

removed opinion, uncited

"Carter is consistently ranked from all across the political spectrum as one of the worst presidents in history." Something substantive about Carter's policies and actions would be appropriate for an encyclopedia. This is nothing more than an opinion with no citing. Further, a citing would be inappropriate for an opinion. Also, putting this sentiment in as "many people's opinion is..." would not add any factual substance to the article.

All political

This article seems to say that there were only 2 recessions and 3 expansions in the entire 20th century. Indeed this article doesn't acknowledge economic cycles at all, and instead gives the impression that the economy goes up and down based who's in the White House. There's no mention of the recession around 1990, the S&L crises, the stock market crash of 1987 or the recession in the late '50s which lead to the failure of the Edsel. Seano1 03:21, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

*Raises hand* My fault.

Who's in control of fiscal policy undoubtedly has a profound effect on the economy. Feel free to expand the article. I'd really like to see someone incorporate the information from the paragraph I commented out. - Calmypal (T) 17:19, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)

The article should be expanded

But wouldn't the economic history of the United States really extend from 1776-present day? The article's title gives this impression, and when someone is trying to figure out economic changes of the early eighteen hundreds, this article doesn't especially help.

It's since been expanded to include everything from the pre-colonial era. -- Beland (talk) 22:07, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Reagan

The section was POV, so I made some edits. The sentence: "Of course, the debt regularly reaches record levels as the debt has not been reduced over the course of a Presidency since" is misleading. Every president in the late 20th century before Reagan reduced the debt as a share of GDP. Dollar values may go up, but the share of GDP is more important. Also misleading, "real GDP growth began" implies that Reagan began real GDP growth. He only did so after contraction in his own term. I also removed some political fluff that doesn't need to be in an encyclopedic economic article. More can probably be done with the section.--Bkwillwm 21:36, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

US article on featured candidate

Just to let you guys know, the United States article is on featured article candidates list, so you can cast your vote there- or not.--Ryz05 19:44, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Economic statistics

I came here looking for information on GDP throughout the history of the country. An ideal chart would have an inflation-adjusted measure all the way back to 1776 or before, if that data is available. Other measures, such as income, income equality, unemployment, standard of living, etc. would also be very informative. -- Beland 00:34, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

James Dec 16 07: Oddly, the caption on the GDP chart says it shows the effects of inflation, but the description attached to the chart says it is real GDP growth, which would be net of inflation.

GDP figures for very long time frames are distorted and generally super estimated, this phenomenon is caused by a series of problems in estimating GDP figures, goods change over time and the proportion of expenditures over several goods changes with it. To estimate GDP figures we have the problem that the basket of goods in with we use do calculate the variation in purchasing power is not precise and we can never have an precise number for the GDP grow. Since these distortions grow exponentially, in the very long run GDP figures are almost useless.--RafaelG 21:44, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I've added a table of historical GDP and GDP per capita back to 1790, which the historian authors feel is accurate to two significant digits. It would probably be a good idea to turn this into a graphic, since that would be easier to read and take up less space. Still looking for info on income inequality and perhaps standard of living. -- Beland (talk) 22:07, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Note number 24 sourcing the percentages of historians and economists who believe that Roosevelt's policies lengthened and deepened the Depression contains a broken link to the source. I had wanted to check out this link because I wondered about the statistic being given only for the dissent, leaving us to wonder, for example, whether that means that 73 percent of economist agree that Roosevelt did not lengthen or deepen the Depression or was there an "undecided" category. In either case, I question whether this would constitute the "broad consensus" claimed in the paragraph of our article. Certainly not if a significant undecided group eats into the remaining 73 percent. In any case, the link is broken and that is always a problem with our articles. Milesnfowler (talk) 15:52, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

1941-1945

Can someone give some links showing that people dispute FDR's policy mindset during WWII? Without references, this seems like a section written by someone who has a personal dislike of FDR's policies, and thus compromises the article's neutrality. _-Z-_ (talk) 00:37, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

There's no point in searching for references to support this section, since there won't be any. This section is not just POV, but historically obtuse. The consensus amongst historians is that New Deal policies greatly aided the economic recovery, especially since the source for World War II spending was the Congress borrowing money at FDR's behest to pour it into defense contracts, similar to what happened with the New Deal alphabet soup agencies. It needs to be completely discarded, with a historically accurate section put in its place.PJtP (talk) 17:11, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

This is not a consensus.

http://www.usnews.com/articles/business/economy/2008/04/11/did-the-new-deal-work.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123353276749137485.html

Fifty-one percent disagreed, and 49 percent agreed with the statement "Taken as a whole, government policies of the New Deal served to lengthen and deepen the Great Depression." This means that statistically half thought that FDR made it worse and longer. The other half could have disagreed because they felt it had no effect, or that it made it worse and not longer, or that it made it longer and not worse, or that it made it better. The point is the jury is still out, and considering that most of the New Deal is very inconsistent with all forms of economic theory (not even Keynes would agree with the cartelizing of industry like FDR did) the criticism should not be dismissed.

On a further note, though many say that WWII ended the Great Depression, they don't say why the GD was considered ended. It's because GDP rose and unemployment fell. Well this is misleading. If I clean my own house and my neighbour cleans his house, neither of us contribute to the GDP or the labour force. But if he pays me to clean his house and I pay him to clean my house, then GDP will increase by the amount we each paid each other, and unemployment will drop (because two employed people are added to the labour force), and yet the economy has not improved in any way. That's kind of what was going on in 1942-1945. The US was a command economy during the war (with rationing and the like) and Americans worked 80 hours a week to increase output. All this proves is that Americans were working very hard, but it does not prove that labour productivity and standard of living improved - more accurate determinants of real economic growth (and considering the long labour weeks, the horrors of war, and the reduction in available goods it is very likely that both fell). Finally, the primary reason unemployment fell is because millions of men were sent to the army and removed from the labour force. If you take any country with 1.5 million unemployed people and then send 1.0 million to go fight a war, your amount of unemployed people will immediately drop to 0.5 million and your unemployment rate will drop by about 70%. To boot, the '37-'39 recession ended in '39 (obviously), but the war (for the U.S. at least) didn't start until December '42.

In conclusion, the New Deal did not unequivocally help America escape depression, and WWII did not improve the economy.

Rainpat (talk) 19:02, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd just like to point out, the previous commenter wrote that the consensus among historians is that New Deal policies aided the recovery (or at least didn't hurt it). That much is true; according to the survey referenced by the USNews article you cite, 74% of professional historians disagreed with the statement, while 6% agreed and 21% agreed with certain provisos. I'd call that a consensus, though perhaps not overwhelming. You'd be correct to say that there is no consensus among economists on the question: 27% agreed, 22% agreed with provisos and 51% disagreed. See my note "Multiple studies..." at the top.

KMarlinKopp (talk) 20:14, 26 July 2011 (UTC)KMarlinKopp

United States article on featured candidate nominations list

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/United States
Cast your vote! The more responses, the more chances the article will improve and maybe pass the nomination.--Ryz05 _t 02:23, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Table is too long to be on this page

Should it be moved to another page?

Should wikipedia be a data repository?

-Gomm 17:40, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Roots of the mixed-market economy

I am by no means a US history major, but I think it would be an important addition to the article to explicitly state the roots of legislation against a purely capitalist system. When was the first social welfare law passed? I only wonder this because if it took 100 years after the consitition was adopted for social welfare policies to be adopted, then it certainly could not have been in the founders' intent that "the pursuit of happiness" means a right to life at the cost of others' lives and the enslavement of the productive. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.39.157.206 (talk) 18:23, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

some stuff looks like it was copied from http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/oecon/chap3.htm

As that is a government website, is it in the public domain? If not, someone should tag this article as a copyright violation (I don't know how, so I can't). 68.197.176.202 (talk) 17:51, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, this article contains a lot of text from that cite. The text is from a product of the US State Department and is in the public domain.--Bkwillwm (talk) 08:20, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Any material taken from another source should be cited whether it is "public domain" or not. --EGeek (talk) 19:27, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Aristocracy

Previous author used aristocracy to describe the original debt holders to whom hamilton charged the early nations control, its a good word when taken from a particular view (namely an american one which doesnt tend to clearly define aristocracy), however the definition of aristocracy does NOT reflect that group of people... aristocracy is primarily a hereditary positioning of the elite power holders.

as hmailton explained “And whom would you have representing us in government? Not the rich, not the wise, not the learned? Would you go to some ditch by the highway and pick up the thieves, the poor, and the lame to lead our government? Yes, we need an aristocracy to be running our government, an aristocracy of intelligence, integrity, and experience.”

He certainly used the word, but his use was actually describing a meritocracy.

Point is, if you use the word, a reader will automaticly think of the traditional meaning of aristocracy, without the context of hamilton's actual comments and intent you would actually come away with an incorrect understanding of what happened. My substitution may be inadequate, but it is somewhat improved from the original.

Lionvision (talk) 16:19, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

If this helps "aristocracy" literally means "rule of the best". So Hamilton simply meant that government should be led by the best.

Rainpat (talk) 19:04, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid that does not help in this context. The etymology of the word is irrelevant to the point Lion is making, which is not at all the origin of the word but how it is understood and what the current meaning is to the reader. He is quite right in that "meritocracy" is the word in this context, and not at all "aristocracy." Shoreranger (talk) 20:24, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Colonial merchantilism

How can the section on the colonial era be devoid of a discussion of British merchantile policies? Also, overly simplistic to say the Revolution was simply about "setting their own taxes" - the lack of representative government and the fallacy of virtual representation were at the heart of it, taxation was just a symptom. Shoreranger (talk) 14:39, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Main article of the Progressive Era

Am I the only one who is amused by the fact that the section of the Progressive Era in this article is longer than the so-called "Main article" on the same topic? 129.240.72.206 (talk) 10:56, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Revert of changes to the article lede

The article lede was expanded by User:Purplejade. I reverted it because it introduced material not covered in the body of the aticle and not sourced at all. In particular it introduces allegations of US poverty in the early years, comparisons of GDP with Great Britain, the significance of wheat growing above all other economic factors, and political and societal factors that led to US economic dominance.

Maybe the article should emphasize some of these points with properly sourced sections within the body of the article, but at this point it doesn't. The place to introduce new material is not the article lede (see WP:LEAD). Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 22:20, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

North Shoreman is quite right, I think. Rjensen (talk) 23:33, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Most powerful economy in late 1880s

Have made correction - the article stated that the United States had the most powerful economy in the late 1880s, having overtaken Britain, then misquoting a very simplistic line in a reference ([12] - 'productive', by '1890', etc., and only with respect to the manufacturing sector). Whatever definition one has of the 'power' of an economy, the US certainly hadn't overtaken Britain at that stage. Due to its large population it certainly had a far greater manufacturing output, but levels of per capita industrialization were not as high (due too maybe to its large land area). The per capita GDP in the US was much lower still, and 100 rich people may have more economic 'power' than 300 less rich people, even if their total income is less (compare Switzerland and Turkey). Britain still dominated world trade, though its position had already been greatly weakened in the 1870s, and those of the US and the new state of Germany greatly strengthened not long afterwards. However, Britain had an economic monopoly in such a large network of the world (its Empire), that it was able to make its laws and dictate trade accordingly. The manufacturing output of the British Empire as a whole, much of which was sent to Britain in very biased trade (and even in its colonies run mainly by British companies), certainly made Britain a more 'powerful' economy. Given the same government was in ultimate control (to varying degrees), the line between the economy of Britain and the economy of the British Empire is a bit fuzzy, globalization being as much of a factor then as now. Finally, how the different sectors were weighted makes it difficult to judge when the crossover happened - and certainly it is not easy either to equate 'size' with 'power'. Therefore, the safest thing to say is either a bland statistic (as I have placed in the article) or a qualified 'over the period between the 1880s and World War I, the United States gradually overtook Britain as the worlds most powerful economy'. Unfortunately in economics, statements less fuzzy than these are often not possible. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.185.146.245 (talk) 23:55, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism

It is vandalism to erase high quality historical information from this article. Please keep the very important historical data. Rjensen (talk) 17:23, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Add US Federal Outlay and GDP linear graph.png ?

99.19.47.120 (talk) 05:46, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Include graphs copied from Wikipedia:Good articles ja:アメリカ合衆国の経済史. At lease some of these are historically key, such as "Twin deficit" (1960-2006).

Contributions to Percent Change in Real GDP (1930-1946), source Bureau of Economic Analysis

Contributions to Percent Change in Real GDP (1947-1973), source Bureau of Economic Analysis

"Twin deficit" (1960-2006)

Contributions to Percent Change in Real GDP (1974-1990), source Bureau of Economic Analysis

Contributions to Percent Change in Real GDP (1991-2008), source Bureau of Economic Analysis

Standard & Poor's Case–Shiller index constant-quality home price indices

Gini Coefficient for Household Income (1967-2007), source United States Chamber of Commerce

99.19.46.177 (talk) 04:53, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Appears to be done. 99.119.128.35 (talk) 23:38, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Add 2011 U.S. debt ceiling crisis note?

Add 2011 U.S. debt ceiling crisis note? 99.35.14.231 (talk) 23:30, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

potential resource

From Portal:Current events/2011 December 15 ...

• 2010 United States Census shows 1 in 2 people are classified as low-income or poor. (Associated Press) (NPR) (CBS News)}}

99.56.120.67 (talk) 05:13, 18 December 2011 (UTC)