The Crisis of the Old Order

the causes of the depression are to be found chiefly in the malpractices of our own Government during the Twenties - the failure of government to adjust itself to profound technological changes; the search for economic self-sufficiency; the bankruptcy of a philosophy which clung tenaciously to shibboleths like the balanced budget and the gold standard. . . the Hoover Administration was all but paralyzed in the face of a crisis that quickly became a disaster.

--Henry Steele Commager, reviewing in March 1957 The Crisis of the Old Order, 1919-1933 by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.

Schlesinger admired Roosevelt and wrote 3 volumes about him. His first volume, The Crisis Of The Old Order, 1919-1933, blamed the Great Depression on Hoover and Republicans. Whatever the truth, then and now, historians will likely follow Democrats and the media in blaming our current economic crisis on Bush and Republicans, setting the stage for a new order under Obama and a Democratic congress, bringing massive policy changes come January.

The bleak economic climate grows bleaker. We’ve just ended the worst week in the Dow Jones index’s history. My FOX INDEX, which measures the distance to a healthy market (12,000 Dow, 1,300 S&P, 2,500 NASDAQ), dropped another 1,000 points over two days to -4,801, its new low (index two months old—we run the FOX INDEX whenever it hits new lows). It’s now 71% of the way from healthy to the market bottom hit in October 2002, at the end of the last bust.