There is something to the claim that history repeats itself. I realize that people running these Iphones think if it hasn’t flashed on their screens in the last 30 seconds, it didn’t happen. In the period during WWI with Europe torn to pieces, American agriculture boomed and farmers were saying they would never have another poor day. In the 1920’s Europe came back into production, farm prices plummeted and a depression flowed through rural America while the cities enjoyed the roaring 20’s.
To help out farmers, Congress passed the Fordney-Mc-Cumber tariff in 1922 which failed to help so Hoover promised to slap another tariff in 1930 called the Smoot-Hawley tariff. As they say at the Kentucky Derby, “they’re off and running”, leading to the Great Depression, totalitarianism and WWII.
In 1922 my father was 12 years old when his stepdad died and he and his mother survived for 16 years on their little 75 acre paid for farm with work he got working on a road crew with grown men. Big John Tyner helped him by letting him work on the crew. The struggle was so traumatic, it remained with him the rest of his life.
When someone comes up with a novel idea on solving a problem, sometimes its best to ask if this has ever been done before and what was the result.
