WILLIAM ENGDAHL—Baruch’s unique influence blocked any genuine Democratic alternative to the disastrous Hoover laissez faire policy in those critical months. That lack of initiatives or solutions from the Democrats in the 1930s was not unlike the deafening silence of Congressional Democrats more than eight decades later during the 2008 Congressional debate over an unprecedented $700 billion Republican bailout bill for Wall Street.
Baruch argued that the deflation of commodity prices had bottomed out in October 1930 and that, “natural curative forces have set themselves in motion. I do not believe government can do anything to help. Every time government steps in, they make it worse.”