Smoot-Hawley has more lives than a cat. I've posted this once or twice before but this topic won't go away so here it is again:
If I have to pay thousands of dollars in property taxes to support a school system, I want that school system to prepare our students to survive in our world. I don't want these kids coming out of public schools brain-washed in "free trade" dogma.
Do I exagerate?
In high school, I was taught U.S. history from a text, "Rise of the American Nation" by Lewis Paul Todd and Merle Curti. I have a copy of it.
On page 729 the text describes the Trade Agreement Act of 1934, which invented "most- favored nation" status and gave the President authority to raise or lower tariffs by as much as 50%.
The text states:
"It gave the Roosevelt administration an effective instrument for stimulating American business by improving trade relations with other nations of the world."
One itsy-bitsy, tiny little fact was left out.
The United States Constitution.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 3:
"The Congress shall have power..To regulate commerce with foreign nations.."
Nowhere in the entire Constitutional Convention, did any framer of that document ever intend for one branch of government to abdicate it's authority over to another branch.
We graduate millions of public students who are ignorant as to how the U.S. Constitution is violated every single day because of liberal history "professors" who write propaganda and pass it off as history. They, in turn, indoctrinate our public school teachers in the "new speak" of "globalism". The teachers, brain-washed in our Universities, proceed to brain-wash our children.
This text with an original copyright of 1950, was still used in 1979 when I graduated, almost unchanged.
On page 651, the text describes the Hawley-Smoot tariff bill of 1930:
"The President felt that some of the rates were too high. He also pondered a petition signed by 1000 leading economist who argued that such high tariffs would raise prices, create hardships for American consumers, seriously interfere with world trade, and invite economic reprisals from other countries."
On page 653, the text is "explaining" some of the possible causes of the great depression:
"Other economists argued that America's high tariff policies helped to stifle world trade and hurt American business. High tariffs, they claimed, prevented other countries from selling their goods in the United States. This in turn prevented them from securing the dollars that they needed to buy American products."
This very same argument showed up in the NAFTA debate between Ross Perot and V.P. Al Gore in 1993.
Any idiot who can stumble into any library, pick up an almanac and read it, will find the following information:
1930 U.S. GDP = $91.3 billion
1930 imports = $4.1 billion
Now if Todd and Curti could perform percentage calculations, they would discover that imports were 4.1 / 91.3 x 100% = 4.4% of GDP in 1930.
With a little research, you find Hawley-Smoot applied to only 1/3 of all imports. In 1933, Hawley-Smoot had the longest list of duty-free imports in American history.
Todd and Curti on page 651 states:
"The Hawley-Smoot tariff bill, calling for the highest tariff in American history..."
Hawley-Smoot average tariff 1930 = 53%, 1932 = 59%
Tariff of Abominations 1828 = 62% applied to 92% of all imports
Morrill tariff applied to 96% of all imports
McKinley tariff applied to 48% of all imports
Hawley-Smoot applying 33% of 4.4% of GDP ? .33 x 4.4 = 1.5% of America's GDP in 1930.
A 53-59% tariff on 1.5% of America's economy caused the great depression that created 23.6% unemployment in 1932 ??????
So this work of fiction passing itself off as a "history text book"
somehow missed another small research resource when trying to "discover" the cause of the Great depression. What would that be?
The Congressional Record.
At the Silver Hearings held by the Senate Finance Committee in 1939, Senator Robert L. Owen, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee said:
"When President Roosevelt came into power six years ago the outstanding currency on March 15, 1933 was $7.2 billion; then it was contracted by the Federal Reserve Board and only expanded by the purchase of silver certificates as to now reach the maximum of $6.7 billion. During the first year of Roosevelt's administration the Federal Reserve Board contracted the currency by two billion dollars. At present the outstanding credits of the Federal Reserve System are a billion dollars less than they were when Roosevelt came in. Under the influence and direction of the Federal Reserve System 16,000 banks have failed in 16 years through mismanagement of the System. The loss in production in the last ten years reached $200 billion in products and services which might have been enjoyed by the people under a management which had their interests at heart, and the country would be free of debt and heavy interest charges. These facts are proven records of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. I make no charges against them on which they do not stand self-convicted by their own speeches and publications. The Fedral Reserve System with its enormous power, with its large bureau of research, with every opportunity to know the facts and take action to help us, has not given this country any relief, and has done all it could to worsen the situation. The consistent action of the Board has been to set itself up firmly as an obstacle to the regulation of the value of money by Congress. The manner in which the stability of our economic life has been impaired by the mismanagement of the Federal Reserve System, and the remedies therefor, have been clearly set forth in Senate Document 23 of the 76th Congress, 1st session. The members of the Board of Governors should not be bankers. The Board and the big bankers have the power to immediately end this depression by instructing the Reserve Banks by instructing the Reserve Banks to buy bonds and notes of the United States on account of the United States at the rate of $50 million a day until such non-liquid securities converted into liquid money should correct the deficit of liquid money produced by the hoarding of demand deposits."
Again, assuming Todd and Curti can read and do percentages, and that Senator Owen knew anything about what the Federal Reserve was doing (ever hear of the Glass-Owen Amendment ?) $2 billion contraction of a $7.2 billion supply of money is
2 / 7.2 x 100% = 27.8 % contraction of the currency in circulation.
Gee, wonder what would happen today if you contracted the currency supply by 27.8% ?
On May 23, 1933, Congressman, Louis T. McFadden, brought formal charges against the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Bank system, The Comptroller of the Currency and the Secretary of United States Treasury for numerous criminal acts, including but not limited to, CONSPIRACY, FRAUD, UNLAWFUL CONVERSION, AND TREASON.
The petition for Articles of Impeachment was thereafter referred to the Judiciary Committee and has
YET TO BE ACTED ON.
"THE GREAT DEPRESSION
"Meanwhile and on account of it, we ourselves are in the midst of the greatest depression we have ever known. From the Atlantic to the Pacific, our Country has been ravaged and laid waste by the evil practices of the Fed and the interests which control them. At no time in our history, has the general welfare of the people been at a lower level or the minds of the people so full of despair.
"Recently in one of our States, 60,000 dwelling houses and farms were brought under the hammer in a single day. 71,000 houses and farms in Oakland County, Michigan, were sold and their erstwhile owners dispossessed. The people who have thus been driven out are the wastage of the Fed. They are the victims of the Fed. Their children are the new slaves of the auction blocks in the revival of the institution of human slavery. "
Congressman Louis T. McFadden
the entire text may be found in the Congressional Record, pages 12595-12603
Tariffs are a TAX, you pay them, I pay them, so why shouldn't imports pay them? If they don't pay them, take a big, fat, guess who gets to pay them?
That's right, you and I pay them, because, bright people, unless government spending isn't reduced as the tariffs are reduced, the Feds have to get their revenue from somebody.
And that somebody is you and me.
Steve