Jul 30, 2019

Iriving Fisher: FDR's reflation efforts not enough to reach bottom (1933)

39. Those who imagine that Roosevelt's avowed reflation is not the cause of our recovery but that we had "reached the bottom anyway" are very much mistaken. At any rate, they have given no evidence, so far as I have seen, that we had reached the bottom. And if they are right, my analysis must be woefully wrong. According to all the evidence, under that analysis, debt and deflation, which had wrought havoc up to March 4, 1933, were then stronger than ever and, if let alone, would have wreaked greater wreckage than ever, after March 4.

~ Irving Fisher, "The Debt-Deflation Theory of Great Depressions," September 1933

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