As we contemplate Hope ‘n Change’s Amen Chorus – otherwise known as the US media – it’s useful to look at Depression-era propaganda promoting FDR’s vision of economic recovery. This 1934 piece produced by MGM extols the virtues of inflation in accelerating economic activity and recovery. The piece ends with FDR’s smiling visage to a spirited rendition of ‘Happy Days Are Here Again.’
Observe well the scenes showing the farmer and the evil banker, who’s portrayed as a Snidely Whiplash character with long mustaches. It’s clear for whom we should be cheering. What’s remarkable, however, is the rather odd morality play: that it’s proper – indeed laudable – for one man to use inflation to enrich himself while impoverishing another.
Another odd bit is the graph drawn by the ‘economist’. In the words of one of Wretchard’s excellent commenters:
The question is always can the class tease out the assumptions from the observations? In the Professors first graph the third line represents labors aggregate purchasing power that fell even faster than the value of the dollar but then is assumed to rise magically faster in the future as all three lines come back into balance. That ignores the fact that all the government activity that is accomplishing this legerdemain is itself expensive. At the least the cost of the government expansion must be deducted from the future wealth of the workers. Then comes the other costs in lost efficiency and opportunities forgone, etc.
Note well that the film places a happy spin on Roosevelt’s intervention in the economy – the narrator assumes that the country has turned a corner and is on its way to recovery - all due, of course, to the all-knowing FDR. But as we know, the Great Depression didn’t end for another eight years.
Contrast the current happy talk about the economy with the propaganda from 1934. Apart from the improvement in production values, can we even detect a difference between then and now?
A major hat tip to Wretchard at the Belmont Club for this video.
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