To the editor: The test of the Veronique de Rugy contributor on the parallels between the price idiocy of President Trump and the economic calamity which followed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 was brilliant and relevant (“WOOS economic nostalgia is voters, but it leads to terrible policies”, “ April 24). As always, we don't learn anything from history. Imposing prices is a second match can – and will be – play.
She could have added that more than 1,000 economists signed a petition Warning President Hoover of the dangers of the law, the imploring the veto. Henry Ford made a personal visit to the White House, Call the “Economic Stupidity” bill. CEO of JP Morgan, Thomas Lamont, wrote That he “almost went down to begging Herbert Hoover to oppose his veto at the Asinine Hawley-Smoot rate”.
While Hoover himself called the bill “Vicious, exorbitant and odious”, “ He signed it anyway, saying that it was his duty to the Republican Party. It did not take long for other countries to retaliate with their own prices, transforming a recession into a great depression and victimizing the very people that he was supposed to protect. Does that seem familiar?
Spencer Grant, Laguna Niguel
