Doesn't the AP Know the Truth About the New Deal Yet?

One of the top AP headlines of the day: "Roosevelt Talk on Unstable Economy Oddly Prescient," which goes on to talk about how he saw that problems in the economy needed to be addressed.

"We have not been brought to our present state by any natural calamity — by drought or floods or earthquakes or by the destruction of our productive machine or our man power," Roosevelt told the crowd. "This is the awful paradox with which we are confronted, a stinging rebuke that challenges our power to operate the economic machine which we have created."

Many of today's issues were around then, including war, globalization and the falling value of the American dollar. And so Roosevelt cautioned against the danger of inaction, a warning also echoed this week in Washington.

"The country needs and — unless I mistake its temper — the country demands bold, persistent experimentation," he said before delivering one of his most-often quoted lines: "It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something."

So first, the article compares the Depression with today, however dissimilar. Second, it suggests that the answer to that crisis was the New Deal, when in fact, most economists agree that the New Deal made the economy much worse than it otherwise would have been. I suppose the true point of the article is what FDR really knew: whichever candidate panders the most to the American people, promising them that the government will give them everything they need, will win the election.