Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Assignment #11
"During those years of false prosperity and during the more recent years of exhausting depression, one business after another, one small corporations after another, their resources depleted, had failed or had fallen into the lap of a bigger competitor. A dangerous thing was happening. Half of the industrial corporate wealth of the country had come under the control of less than two hundred corporations. That is not all. These huge corporations in some cases did not even try to compete with each other. They themselves were tied together by interlocking directors, interlocking bankers, interlocking lawyers..."
 Franklin D. Roosevelt

 What Roosevelt is implying with this statement is that the great depression was caused by a lack of distribution. Only a handful of companies had wealth and these companies would not compete with each other. So prices would not flucuat, they would remain high causing greater returns for the company but fewer dollars to spend for the consumer. Competition in the market in his eyes could have possibly stoveoff the depression, but since companies were working together and competition was virtually non-existent, the depression was inevitable. Everyone was working together to maximize their own profits and to hell with everyone else. He uses the word interlocked, as if they were all chained or connected together and if one fell the rest would follow. Which is what happened, greed lead to slef interest, which lead shady deals, which lead to a collapse
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Great Depression Artictle
 "Democracy has disappeared in several other great nations, not because the people of those nations disliked democracy, but because they had grown tired of unemployment and insecurity, of seeing their children hungry while they sat helpless in the face of government confusion and government weakness through lack of leadership....Finally, in desperation, they chose to sacrifice liberty in the hope of getting something to eat. We in America know that our democratic institutions can be preserved and made to work. But in order to preserve them we need...to prove that the practical operation of democratic government is equal to the task of protecting the security of the people....The people of America are in agreement in defending their liberties at any cost, and the first line of the defense lies in the protection of economic security."
 Franklin D. Roosevelt

 This passage about the Great Depression highlights how foreign nations have abandoned the use of Democracy. He states that this was done out of fear because a country gets afraid when its people are going hungry, unemployment is at a high and money and resources are scarce. He believes that these countries are weak and lacked the necessary leadership to help uplift them and remain a democratic nation. He places people's libery above all and they should not be squandered no matter what the nation is facing. The security of the people is important, because in all actuality it is the people who make up the nation so you should be abandoned their rights in favor of a stronger healthier country. He feels the in America they people will not abandon their rights and liberties in place of a meal. He knows that they will try to make things work and they will also preserve the democratic state for aslong as they can.

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