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From: peter@athena.mit.edu (Peter J Desnoyers)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.atari.st,comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.mac,sci.electronics,comp.arch
Subject: Re: Protectionism
Message-ID: <4285@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>
Date: 3 Apr 88 12:21:38 GMT
References: <2441@unicus.UUCP> <1259@hubcap.UUCP> <1641@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> <1519@dataio.Data-IO.COM>
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Reply-To: peter@athena.mit.edu (Peter J Desnoyers)
Followup-To: comp.misc
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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In article <1519@dataio.Data-IO.COM> bright@dataio.UUCP (Walter Bright) writes:
>Most economists today agree that one of the major causes of the Great
 ^^^^
Yeah. One of them. Milton Friedman. (sarcasm)
>
>The causes of the Depression were:
>1. Comprehensive new protectionist laws.
>2. Large tax increases.
>3. The Federal Reserve System failed to allow interest rates to rise, and
>   failed to make more money available to banks (which directly resulted
>   in bank failures).
>4. The stock market crash was not in itself responsible (just look at last
>   October's crash, where's the new Great Depression?).
>
I hate to argue such a pointless thing, but the error is so obvious
and widespread. The Great Depression was NOT merely caused by forces
acting within the boundaries of the U.S. Otherwise it might have
stayed there. It was a world-wide depression. What about other
factors: 

1. Farm capacity in Europe that had been knocked out in WWI, and
replaced by the U.S., Canada, Australia (or something like that) had
just recovered, leading to a glut of many farm products

2. All sorts of linked debt and reparations payments.

3. Transition from London to New York as the chief financial market of
the world.

Tons of other things. A protectionist tariff on chips probably won't
bring on another depression, but it will hurt all our board makers,
and there are a lot more of them than there are chip makers. Instead
of DAMAGING everyone else through tariffs, why doesn't the government
ever try HELPING the companies that are not doing well? Things like
government-coordinated planning, R&D, and other things which are
standard in the military field, but unknown in civilian life. (Outside
of Japan, Germany, ...)

				Peter Desnoyers
				peter@athena.mit.edu