I was watching an interview with Ben Bernankee on YouTube the other day, in which he credited the bank bailouts of 2008 with preventing the "great recession" from turning into the Great Depression round two. That (and today's 'Betweeen Two Wars special on the great depression') got me thinking about whether a bailout of the big banks would have been possible in 1929, and could have prevented the stock market from crashing the economy. A couple.of questions I don't know the answers to:
1) Was economic thinking around in 1929 that would have endorsed such a move?
2) Did the government have the money/authority to inject money into the financial sector as it did in 2008 in 1929?
3) Would Congress have balked at the cost of the bill?
4) Definitely this bailout would have lit a fire under the populist movements in the US at this time, probably resulting in Roosevelt still winning the 1932 election. How would Roosevelt be remembered in a world without the Great Depression?
1) Was economic thinking around in 1929 that would have endorsed such a move?
2) Did the government have the money/authority to inject money into the financial sector as it did in 2008 in 1929?
3) Would Congress have balked at the cost of the bill?
4) Definitely this bailout would have lit a fire under the populist movements in the US at this time, probably resulting in Roosevelt still winning the 1932 election. How would Roosevelt be remembered in a world without the Great Depression?
