FDR's Fireside Chats... If Only

If only we had FDR right now!

He calmed the people during the Great Depression with his “Fireside Chats”. If you have never read any of these chats… here’s a link to some.

FDR’s Fireside Chats

I hate feeling like I’m being railroaded. I feel as if things are moving so fast that I’ve been swept up in a tornado. I don’t like the leaders not “chatting” with us… it would be so comforting. I feel that each and every one of us needs a little TLC.

FDR was eloquent in his chats. In one he says…

“Two months ago we were facing serious problems. The country was dying by inches. It was dying because trade and commerce had declined to dangerously low levels; prices for basic commodities were such as to destroy the value of the assets of national institutions such as banks, savings banks, insurance companies, and others. These institutions, because of their great needs, were foreclosing mortgages, calling loans, refusing credit. Thus there was actually in process of destruction the property of millions of people who had borrowed money on that property in terms of dollars which had had an entirely different value from the level of March, 1933. That situation in that crisis did not call for any complicated consideration of economic panaceas or fancy plans. We were faced by a condition and not a theory.

There were just two alternatives: The first was to allow the foreclosures to continue, credit to be withheld and money to go into hiding, and thus forcing liquidation and bankruptcy of banks, railroads and insurance companies and a recapitalizing of all business and all property on a lower level. This alternative meant a continuation of what is loosely called "deflation", the net result of which would have been extraordinary hardship on all property owners and, incidentally, extraordinary hardships on all persons working for wages through an increase in unemployment and a further reduction of the wage scale.”

FDR didn’t forget the little people. He did everything in his power to get the Country back on its feet.

The next President is going to inherit a lot of problems. Think about FDR when you go into vote. Which candidate is more capable to have a “fireside chat” with the American people?