"Obama is starting to remind me of Hoover..."

[JFN1]

So said of friend of mine, earlier today. I disagreed with him, thinking there is no way that Obama is anything like Hoover.

Troubled, I went to Wikipedia to do a bit of research on our 31st President, and came away a bit shocked. Indeed, there are similarities.

-- Hoover promoted government intervention under the rubric "economic modernization". Obama promoted government intervention under the rubric "too big to fail."

-- In the presidential election of 1928, Hoover easily won the Republican nomination, despite having no previous elected office experience. In the presidential election of 2008, Obama easily won the Democratic nomination, despite having no executive experience.

-- Hoover, a trained engineer, deeply believed in the Efficiency Movement, which held that government and the economy were riddled with inefficiency and waste, and could be improved by experts who could identify the problems and solve them. Obama, a trained Constitutional lawyer, deeply believes blind bi-partisanship can improve the government and remove partisan differences from the legislative and political process.

-- When the Wall Street Crash of 1929 struck less than eight months after he took office, Hoover tried to combat the following Great Depression with volunteer efforts, none of which produced economic recovery during his term. While the banking crisis of 2008 continued as Obama took office, Obama tried to combat the Great Recession with billions of dollars of aid to banks and big corporations, none of which have produced economic recovery for Main Street Americans.

-- The consensus among historians is that Hoover's defeat in the 1932 election was caused primarily by failure to end the downward economic spiral, compounded by popular opposition to prohibition. It appears Obama is on the path to defeat in 2012, caused primarily by failure to end the downward economic spiral and reform health care, as Obama's policies appear to favor only corporate profits and insurance monopolies.

There is much, much more. The parallels I've drawn here are in no way exact, but the historical flavor of them, for lack of a better term, seem to be very similar...

Flame on!

[TheWraith]

1. Yeah, if you make up stuff to fit, they DO seem similar...

:eyes:

[chimpymustgo]

2. Can you be more specific?

[SemiCharmedQuark]

16. Yes. What are the similarities between a "trained engineer" and a "trained constitutional lawyer"?

What are the similarities between believing in Efficiency and believing in Bipartisanship? That they're wrong things to believe in? Well then is Ken Ham like Hoover for believing in creationism?

[JFN1]

22. See reply #18. n/t

[JFN1]

20. Not really...

It's just the sense of things I get when I read about Hoover and think about what we've seen thus far from Mr. Obama...

[JFN1]

4. Oh, puh-lease.

I didn't make up ANY of this stuff up... :tinfoilhat:

[AndyA]

9. Don't worry, some people have a difficult time accepting reality.

They don't like being lied to, or suckered. And it's beginning to become obvious to most everyone except the diehard followers that things aren't as we were told they'd be.

No transparency, continuation of Bush policies, protecting torturers, etc.

It's a bitter pill for some to swallow.

Thanks for your post, I'd never considered the similarities, but they are indeed there. You just have to open your eyes to see them. ;)

[mikita]

5. hardly made up:

"as Obama's policies appear to favor only corporate profits and insurance monopolies."

[JFN1]

8. That is an opinion.

You can tell, because I used the qualifier, "appear."

[mikita]

26. I understand...

what I was trying to relay is that it is an "opinion" that has an awful lot to back it up, rather than not.

I have no beef with you. I was responding to poster who thought you were making stuff up....

[FiveGoodMen]

3. K&R

[Vidar]

6. K&R.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

7. JFK and Lincoln had no executive experience. I guess they're just like Hoover!

[JFN1]

11. If that were the only item under comparison

I would be forced to agree. But since it is not...

[SemiCharmedQuark]

12. When it is one item out of only four given, then 25% of your points are fallacious.

[AllentownJake]

10. Hoover was also a semi-descent guy before taking office

He was a racist, but so was 95% of the white population at the time.

He went to Europe and Russia in an effort to feed the hungry after WWI.

[Zynx]

13. There's actually so much wrong with this "analysis" it's not even funny.

For one, Obama did not easily win the nomination. For another Hoover had executive experience as Commerce Secretary and was widely viewed as being among the foremost economic thinkers of the time.

Obama's response was not primarily to aid the banks. The stimulus bill is bigger than TARP and a large segment of TARP has now been paid back so that the net cost of TARP is heavily reduced. Other portions of TARP helped to save hundreds of thousands of auto jobs. Obama's stimulus bill has already been analyzed by the non-partisan CBO to have created or saved as much as 1% of the labor force with only one third spent.

There is no consensus view that Obama is headed toward defeat. At a similar point of his presidency it would have been much easier to hit Reagan with the Hoover label. At a similar point into his economic program, the economy was still cratering. Ours is now growing.

The parallels in nearly no way exist than they do with nearly any other president.

[JFN1]

25. Yes, there are obvious differences.

But there are also things that are quite the same, as I see it.

As far as all of the programs Obama has committed to changing the economy, so far the net effect has been less than spectacular, in large part due to his pro-corporate policies.

The TARP bailout, and the "too big to fail" bailouts all mirror, in policy philosophy, the disastrous policies enacted under Hoover.

Of course the actions are not the same, as the circumstances are not the same. But this does not exclude historical comparisons or the similarities generated by such comparisons.

And I am NOT saying I'm right. I'm just saying what I see. Again, take it for what it is worth - if you find it worthless, so be it.

But - if I'm right...

[HughMoran]

14. Eyes glazing over...

where's the beef?

[SemiCharmedQuark]

15. Ok. How are a "trained engineer" and a "trained constitutional lawyer" parallel?

How is believing in the Efficiency movement parallel to believing in bi partisanship?

[JFN1]

18. As I see it

They are both trained professionals in disciplines which take a high amount of intelligence, drive, and talent to succeed at.

The Efficiency Movement and Obama's undying belief in bi-partisanship are both philosophies that espouse great things, but do not meet the actual reality these philosophies naively attempt to fit.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

19. Those parallels are rather forced. FDR was a corporate lawyer.

Bill Clinton was a lawyer as well.

[JFN1]

21. It's just my opinion.

It's worth about 2 cents around here...

[SemiCharmedQuark]

23. Law school is a common stepping stone to politics.

[OnceUponTimeOnTheNet]

17. The economic spiral can not be stopped, just kicked down the lane abit.

It is impossible to stop it. It will happen.

Reinstate Glass Steagall now.

[Deja Q]

24. "Free is not a business model". Of course volunteerism won't resolve the problem!

:dunce:

[JFN1]

27. Any more than "too big to fail" has...

[pampango]

28. Hoover let the banks fail, cut spending to balance the budget and raised tariffs.

Obama bailed the banks out so they wouldn't fail, expanded spending with a stimulus bill and has not raised tariffs, other than a couple of specific cases with Chinese products. One may not agree with what Obama did, but it was not similar to the way that Hoover handled things.

Hoover's efforts after the Crash of '29 led to economic collapse on Wall Street and Main Street; 25% unemployment, a 50% reduction in GDP and a steep sustained decline in the stock market. Obama in less than a year has, so far, prevented Great Depression II (it might still happen but Hoover didn't even slow it down this much) and may (just may) be able to restore the economy in less than the 10 years it took in the 1930's.