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Henry Ford: Why I Favor Five Days' Work With Six Days' Pay

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Re: Henry Ford: Why I Favor Five Days' Work With Six Days' Pay

#41

Post by yummyfajitas »

jbooth wrote: post #35
yummyfajitas wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hoover didn't balance the budget, he doubled the national debt. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Debt1929-50.jpg It is true, however, that he raised taxes on the rich. Sound like anyone we know?

Yes, the debt went up. Tax revenues collapsed in this period, remember. But Hoover was trying to balance the budget. He saw it as a goal, an end to itself that would reassure credit markets and do a bunch of good. FDR saw stimulating demand as more important in the short term. That's the difference between them. Hoover was raising taxes to try and balance the budget, and only increased government spending very slight…

Hoover increased spending by 50%, from $3.1B to $4.6B. FDR called him a Socialist.

http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/publications/erp/page/3796/1208...

As one of FDR's brain trust stated, "practically the whole New Deal was extrapolated from programs that Hoover started."

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/goldengate/sfeature/sf_30s.html

Re: Henry Ford: Why I Favor Five Days' Work With Six Days' Pay

#42

Post by jswinghammer »

jbooth wrote: post #21
jswinghammer wrote: post #2

This sort of thinking drove government policy at the start of the Great Depression. President Hoover tried to maintain high wage rates seeing them as the cause of prosperity and not the effect of greater productivity. Henry Ford was probably the most influential person in this camp but most of American business at the time was on board with it as well. Murray Rothbard's "America's Great Depression" has probably the b…

"proto-New Deal policies?" As I understand it, Hoover was preoccupied with maintaining a balanced federal budget through budget cuts and tax increases. That's the opposite of countercyclical spending, which along with some welfare state components made up the new deal. Maybe he was on board with the welfare state and the idea of people having high wages (who isn't?), but the government doesn't cut the majority of pay…

With all due respect that's because you haven't read more on the subject. Lord Keynes himself is quoted in Rothbard's book as approving of the United States government's response to the crisis. The notion that depressions are caused by a fall in aggregate demand is looking totally at the symptoms of the crisis and not the causes. Rothbard might be one person but he's not a minor figure in 20th century economics by any means. He's not really on the level of Hayek, Friedman, Keynes, or Mises in terms of influence but he's no joke either.

Hoover was the main force in the Harding administration to respond to the crisis of 1920-21 which Harding wisely ignored. The contraction in the economy was very severe but we recovered quickly and no one remembers it--except Austrian economists like Rothbard.

And considering the lengths Roosevelt was willing to go to I'm not surprised Hoover didn't like all of The New Deal. I'm not sure Hoover or anyone else saw the seizing of all gold coming. I'm not sure why history forgives him for that act of theft.

Re: Henry Ford: Why I Favor Five Days' Work With Six Days' Pay

#43

Post by jbooth »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #41
jbooth wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the debt went up. Tax revenues collapsed in this period, remember. But Hoover was trying to balance the budget. He saw it as a goal, an end to itself that would reassure credit markets and do a bunch of good. FDR saw stimulating demand as more important in the short term. That's the difference between them. Hoover was raising taxes to try and balance the budget, and only increased government spending very slight…

Hoover increased spending by 50%, from $3.1B to $4.6B. FDR called him a Socialist. http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/publications/erp/page/3796/1208... As one of FDR's brain trust stated, "practically the whole New Deal was extrapolated from programs that Hoover started." http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/goldengate/sfeature/sf_30s.html

Interesting stuff. It does seem to turn out that Hoover pushed less for balanced budgets than I thought, although there are lots of statements attributed to him around 1932 trying to balance the budget, the tax hikes, etc.

But I thought the difference was more clear-cut than that as far as their actions.

Still, I find it hard to justify the statement that "they had the same view in regards to counter-cyclical spending and balanced budgets" -- FDR championed crazy deficits to stimulate the economy for a decade, Hoover seems to have been trying to move towards a balanced budget after a brief round of stimulus.

Re: Henry Ford: Why I Favor Five Days' Work With Six Days' Pay

#45

Post by kiba »

jbooth wrote: post #40
kiba wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, in absence of better proof provided, I'll stick with the opinion of the majority of historians. What is your rationale for sticking with whatever the majority of historians said? The rest of your points haven't had anything to do with government finances or the attitudes of both presidents towards countercyclical spending vs balanced budgets. They seem like some blindly-applied-backwards-80-years modern republi…

Because, respectfully, the entire thought process displayed by your post seems to consist of "government = bad, therefore new deal = bad". It shows very little effort to understand what was actually happening, it boxes a huuuuuge range of possibilities into a simple black/white viewpoint, and it's a silly oversimplification that has high correlation with modern republicans. As far as what the majority of historians s…

it shows very little effort to understand what was actually happening, it boxes a huuuuuge range of possibilities into a simple black/white viewpoint

I do not work on whether a viewpoint is black and white or gray but if it represent the true map of the reality. Such explanations is nonsense to me.

and it's a silly oversimplification that has high correlation with modern republicans.

You'll need to expand your perimeter on political spectrum.

You'll also need to explain why my views is a silly oversimplification.(Err, I mean wrong.)

Re: Henry Ford: Why I Favor Five Days' Work With Six Days' Pay

#46

Post by yummyfajitas »

jbooth wrote: post #43
yummyfajitas wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hoover increased spending by 50%, from $3.1B to $4.6B. FDR called him a Socialist. http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/publications/erp/page/3796/1208... As one of FDR's brain trust stated, "practically the whole New Deal was extrapolated from programs that Hoover started." http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/goldengate/sfeature/sf_30s.html

Interesting stuff. It does seem to turn out that Hoover pushed less for balanced budgets than I thought, although there are lots of statements attributed to him around 1932 trying to balance the budget, the tax hikes, etc. But I thought the difference was more clear-cut than that as far as their actions. Still, I find it hard to justify the statement that "they had the same view in regards to counter-cyclical spendin…

According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Hoover#1932_campaign), there are statements attributed to FDR accusing Hoover of reckless spending and criticizing him for spending too much and putting too many people on the dole. There are a lot of statements attributed to Bush about humble foreign policy, limited government and deregulation, and statements attributed to Obama about how forcing people to buy insurance is a bad thing.

In general, I assume that a politicians views agree with what he does rather than the lies he tells to get elected.

Re: Henry Ford: Why I Favor Five Days' Work With Six Days' Pay

#47

Post by mattmillr »

eru wrote: post #30
kiba wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some reason(Correct me if I am wrong), the company town business model seem to have completely disappear. This, to me, suggest the uncompetitiveness of company towns.

Almost completely. I don't know if Disney counts.

Having lived for a semester at Vista Way, I think Disney World's College Program is as close to a living in a company town as you can get nowadays in the US. They completely control two municipalities, and provide the jobs, the bank, the housing, the food, the fire department, the EMS, the phone company, and the transportation services.

The Foxconn facilities in China might be a contender as well, but I don't know enough to say.

Re: Henry Ford: Why I Favor Five Days' Work With Six Days' Pay

#48

Post by theBobMcCormick »

openfly wrote: post #9

Also, look at the business policies and employment benefits first introduced by the Guinness brewery when they were founded. If you want to see how to establish a universally unbeatable brand identity they have a how to guide for the ages.

Any recommended links for reading about that?

Re: Henry Ford: Why I Favor Five Days' Work With Six Days' Pay

#49

Post by nerfhammer »

jbooth wrote: post #43
yummyfajitas wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hoover increased spending by 50%, from $3.1B to $4.6B. FDR called him a Socialist. http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/publications/erp/page/3796/1208... As one of FDR's brain trust stated, "practically the whole New Deal was extrapolated from programs that Hoover started." http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/goldengate/sfeature/sf_30s.html

Interesting stuff. It does seem to turn out that Hoover pushed less for balanced budgets than I thought, although there are lots of statements attributed to him around 1932 trying to balance the budget, the tax hikes, etc. But I thought the difference was more clear-cut than that as far as their actions. Still, I find it hard to justify the statement that "they had the same view in regards to counter-cyclical spendin…

Hoover signed into law drastic tax increases, e.g. Revenue Act of 1932.

He did attempt some spending programs near the end of his presidency which was also at a point where the depression was already around the point of its most extreme GDP contraction.

You could argue that was FDR did in terms of spending and bank reforms was similar to what Hoover started near the end of his presidency but orders of magnitude larger. In contrast debt/GDP actually remained neutral during the New Deal due to concurrent GDP expansion.

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