FDR and Obama's Unfortunate Economic Inheritance

In Franklin Delano Roosevelt's inauguration speech, he spoke of issues that not only pertained to the issues of his day, but the issues of ours. At the time he was elected, the country faced a great economic slump, otherwise known as the great depression. Today, we face a very similar issue; the '08 recession. Our recession could easily lead to a depression, which is why our new president is coming in at a crucial time in this crisis, one which is still on it's way to disaster, but not there yet. In FDR's inauguration speech, he said, "Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously." The ideology of Franklin Roosevelt is something that applies just as much to the crisis we face today as it did to the one in the 1930's.

One of the main causes of the great depression was the major separation of classes. A select few in America (.01%) had more money than 40% of the lower class people in put together. Although money gives no official political power, it does allow for major changes in the political climate, which is precisely what happened. Since the distribution of wealth was uneven, when the stock markets crashed, there was nowhere near enough money to go around. The '08 recession is quite similar. The CEO's of a few banks had very much of the money, and the ability to do with it what they pleased. Since there was no even distribution, once the banks went under, the stocks plummeted and the money was nowhere to be found.

The consequences of the great depression involved the stock market crash (otherwise known as "Black Thursday"), which, over the course of the next 3 years, lead to the failure of 25,000 banks, as well as 12 to 15 million people becoming unemployed. The 2008 recession has many of the same characteristics as the recession, just not as amplified. The number of unemployed Americans rose to 6.5%, with 1.2 million jobs being lost over the course of 2008, and hundreds of thousands of homes being lost.

As stated before, FDR's (main) proposed solution to the depression was to "put people to work." Within the first 100 days of his presidency, he created many federally funded programs in which the people of America contributed, and helped to rebuild America. Barack Obama now has a similar plan, which is called Organizing For America. With this program, he has created a website which will allow people to find work to do in their community, which will in turn help to raise money and rebuild our economy.

As FDR said, "Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort." In order to accomplish solving the problems similar to those which Franklin D. Roosevelt had to solve, President Barack Obama has and will need to continue to inspire hope in the people, and convince them that they are the solution. Then, and only then, can we pull ourselves out of this recession, in the way that FDR managed to help pull America out of the great depression.