FDR: First to Forecast Financial Traps Laid by Fascists

[Post Summary]

That which is done is what will be done
—Ecclesiastes

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One of the great American industrialists of our day—a man who has rendered yeoman service to his country in this crisis—recently emphasized the grave dangers of "rightist reaction" in this Nation. All clear-thinking businessmen share his concern. Indeed, if such reaction should develop—if history were to repeat itself and we were to return to the so-called "normalcy" of the 1920’s—then it is certain that even though we shall have conquered our enemies on the battlefields abroad, we shall have yielded to the spirit of Fascism here at home.
—Franklin Delano Roosevelt, State of the Union Address, January 11, 1944

All clear-thinking businessmen still share this concern. Likewise, some understand that, adversaries to uniquely American principles are no less pernicious today than was the case sixty-five years ago. Yet the faulty, tyrannical thinking of today's fascists has never been so vulnerable to refutation.




Starting in the late-1960s the death of FDR's Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates ushered in a new era of economic disruption by way of inflation. This risk has not for one minute abated at any time over the past forty years.

Much like the larger part of the U.S. manufacturing base, inflation largely has been exported since the 1980s. This might satisfy the sentiments of cold-hearted bean counters whose formulations provide ammunition to fascist intellectual benefactors, but to any American-thinker it speaks only of folly perpetrated through deception, the likes of which would make Joseph Goebbels blush.

Yet with each passing day there is a growing threat of destructive, hyper-inflationary breakdown crisis sweeping across the globe. This is a consequence of arrangements making capital the master of economy (the fundamental principle behind globalization), rather than robust, capital-intensive, technologically-progressive, life-enhancing, productive economic endeavoring being the ultimate director of how capital is lawfully applied (the essence of principle underlying the American System of Political Economy).

In this latter configuration "economy" is an enterprise representing the manner in which principle put forward in the U.S. Constitution's Preamble is applied. Those who attack FDR are, in fact, opposed to this principle. Their thinking represents the very tyranny the United States of America was formed to oppose. It is treason.

Standing as ultimate demonstration of animosity toward American principle FDR's policies went great lengths to promote is the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act separating commercial and investment banking.

There is no coincidence the riskiest of financial assets — common stocks — hit the brick wall soon after the Glass-Steagall Act was repealed. With the financial underpinnings of the domestic economy further weakened (extending the damage done when the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates was destroyed), it is indeed lawful "the market" would react as it has. The worst (all too likely) is yet to come.

With all manner of derivative credit securities now requiring government support, we come full circle to practical matters affected by those who tirelessly attack policies FDR fought for on behalf of every energetic American citizen, then and now. Our very posterity as a functioning constitutional republic is facing the challenge of finance demanding supremacy over principle whose likes FDR diligently furthered.

Equity risk today is far greater than it was in 1929. Then, there was a vibrant, productive, surplus-exporting, physical economy supporting financial claims of the day. Today, there's a hollow shell. Then, there was far less financial leverage. Today, the financial system is leveraged to the hilt.

No one rational would complain about prospects in an ownership society were it not for the fact odds were becoming increasingly stacked against the average person's success. Tearing down protections meant to level the playing field — taking aim at those whose actions both promoted stability and facilitated consistent growth — reveals a foe to the Laws of Nature and Nature's God.

The problem is not capitalism. Rather it is precisely what FDR identified. The greater threat to the financial, economic and political posterity of the United States of America comes from fascists among us.

—Tom Chechatka