Forbidden Donut

A lot of arguing back and forth on how effective the New Deal was... I'm leaning to the fact that it wasn't good. Today, I just learned that FDR had farmers cut back to raise prices and later, was surprised to find that people weren't getting enough nutrition in their diet. I died a bit inside.

edit: forgot to add what I initially wanted to post.

Any good suggestions on books for New Deal economics. Preferably, one that is unbiased (as unbiased as possible). That doesn't seem likely when I hear/see how heated the debate is, so one good one from either side would be great.

Howard Zinn has your back in this article.

He has also written a couple really great books on American history, but I don't know if anything he's written focuses straight on the New Deal. The man is probably one of the most talented author-historians alive today. He also writes plays, and none of his opinions are arbitrary but rather set upon the stage of American history.

Try him. Here's his site with bibliography to poke through.

Seems like a knowledgeable guy. I'm looking for more of a lower level look. I'd like to take a look at the specific actions that were done and their market reactions (both long and short term).

That, unfortunately, doesn't quite work with history. As nice as it would be to have a set of metrics to measure the effectiveness of policies, context remains one of the most important factors in the study of history.

Though it wouldn't be that hard to pull a full list of shit that came into existence because of the new deal, and examine which had positive causation, and which can be written off as merely correlative market events. You could also find the list of agencies and programs that still persist today and do a similar examination of the long term effects of those programs. That shit would take FOREVER though. Just look as social security and FDIC. Huge complicated programs that are so completely intertwined with our lives that their removal could potentially cripple us for a generation, but their continued existence serves as little more than a thorn in our side.

I'd wager that in his Twentieth Century, Zinn goes as into that sort of thing as one could expect. Haven't read it though. And to answer the question frankly: No, I don't know of a book that would present the information in such a way as to allow you to draw your own conclusions, while still providing an ample amount of information. But I do recommend Zinn as a general resource for a mostly unbiased source of American history.

I concur.

I think Obama is a smart guy...but I am not really in line with his economic/government involvement ideas.

It will be an interesting first year.

STEAK!