David Waldman had an excellent front page article pointing out the inanity of some of Michelle Bachmann's recent statements, including some of the absurd factual errors in those statements. But it's even worse than his article points out. I'm old enough to have had parents who lived through both World War I (although they were very young at the time) and to have been beginning adulthood during the early years of the Great Depression. They had both begun college, with my father wanting to become an accountant and my mother wanting to become a teacher, but had to drop out because of the onset of the Great Depression. I've heard my father's stories of hithchhiking around the Midwest, desperately hoping to find any kind of work, and sometimes having to rely on the charity of strangers who gave him a meal or let him sleep in their barn for the night.
My parents, despite that experience, were Republicans like most other people in central Illinois, so when Michelle Bachmann made her statements about how the post-World War I recession was much worse than what was facing FDR when he took office, I was pretty confident I would have heard about that from them if it were true. And to say that I never heard any such thing from them would be a major understatement. Pretty clearly, they regarded the Great Depression, especially its early years, as even more traumatic for them than World War II, in which my father served in combat.
So I had the following question: Where did this idiot ever get the impression that the Post-WWI recession was worse than the Great Depression when FDR took office? I've NEVER heard anyone say that, regardless of their politics. I still can't come up with an answer as to where the idiot got that impression, other than from her own fevered imagination, but the facts reveal that she is so stunningly ignorant that she makes Sarah Palin look like a genius by comparison. (And believe me, that's not something I say lightly.)
Here are the facts:
The St. Lous Fed has published a monthly U.S. Industrial Production Index since January 1919, when it was at 5.4404. (All figures are periodically adjusted to make some relatively recent date equal 100, which now represents the average for 2002.) From there, it climbed to a high of 6.2821 in February 1920 before declining to a low of 4.2381 in March and April of 1921, representing a decline of a little more than 33%. By the time Coolidge took office, it was already back up to 6.793, which was a little lower than it had been the previous 3 months, but otherwise higher than it had EVER been. And what was that 1923 peak, which must be the beginning of the "major recession" that she claims existed when Coolidge took office? It was 7.0335 in May of 1923, so it had only declined by about 3.5% from its peak. The lowest it got during Coolidge's time in office was 5.7711 in July 1924, a decline of less than 18% from its previous peak.
Or let's look at the Dow Jones Industrial Average. On 11/3/19, the Dow hit its high close for the year of 119.60. On 3/4/21, the date Warren Harding was inaugurated, it closed at 75.10, a decline of a little more than 37%, and already recovering from its low of 66.80 late the previous December. By the time Coolidge took office on 8/2/23, it closed at 88.20, so the recovery there was already well underway.
How do these figures compare to the situation faced by FDR when he took office? First, the Dow. On 9/3/1929, it had closed at an all-time high of 381.20. On 3/3/33, the last trading day before FDR was inaugurated, it closed at 53.80. That represents a decline of more than 85% from its previous high. Just a mild little recession, Representative Bachmann?
And now, let's look at industrial production. In August of 1929, the Industrial Production Index was at 8.7768. In March of 1933, when FDR was inaugurated, it was at 4.2381, a decline of more than 51% from its previous peak. And if she thinks Roosevelt turned a "mild recession" into the Great Depression, I'd love to hear her explanation of how it is that the Industrial Production Index has NEVER gone as low as it was in March 1933 at any time since then, whether during the Roosevelt administration or any more recent administration.
There have certainly been some not very bright members of Congress, in both parties, but I seriously doubt that there has ever been one whose ignorance rises to the dizzying heights acheived by Michelle Bachmann, much less one who has been so anxious to put their amazing level of ignorance on full public display. In the interest of full disclosure, perhaps she should change her name to "Michelle Brainless."