0xC9: Nationalistic Recovery Administration

You should listen to the talk by Roger W. Garrison, who spoke at this year's Mises University. One of the things he mentions is this idea of a NRA. No, not the National Rifle Association. In 1933, the NRA was a program President Franklin Roosevelt established to deal with prices (among other things) in The Great Depression, and it stood for National Recovery Administration.

This NRA symbol was later banned to prevent misuse. That shows how powerful symbolism is. The Obama version is called Recovery.gov. History just repeats itself.

Garrison talks about how the Cash for Clunkers program was supposed to last until November, 2009. Congress originally allocated $1 billion, which was supposed to last that long. But the program was more popular than they realized.

As you recall, the bill requires that the cars be destroyed. No resale, no charity, no exports to foreign nations. Not even a moment’s consideration to whether the drive-train could be used by anyone, for anything, anywhere.

Garrison mentions the fact that Roosevelt had pigs slaughtered in the fields and left to rot, in a vane attempt to bring prosperity to all.

So an interesting comparison to the wastefulness of these programs, by Garrison's estimate, Roosevelt had 24 pigs killed for every car Obama destroys, up to the $1 billion point (adjusted for inflation). Garrison made that estimate back in late July of this year, so at the time, he didn't know it was going to be extended due to popularity.

To extrapolate, I think that means when Congress spends $3 billion on the revised version of the plan, the equivalent pigs slaughtered per car will become 8 to 1. Many countries in the EU have made their Cash for Clunkers program permanent, so how long before Obama will have crushed more cars than Roosevelt slaughtered pigs?

At the end of the MU talk, Garrison shows a public service announcement made in 1933 for support of Roosevelt's National Recovery Administration, urging employers to hire. Moe Howard from the Three Stooges appears as an exterminator, whom Jimmy Durante urges to hire more men.

Source: YouTube