Eventually, Hoover settled on the position that outside remedies would only make the financial situation worse. “Economic depression cannot be cured by legislative action or executive pronouncement. Economic wounds must be healed by the action of the cells of the economic body—the producers and consumers themselves,” he said. Yes, the 1929 crash had revealed serious flaws, but the fixes for those flaws lay within the market itself. The uptick in production numbers in the fall of 1930, followed by the revived stock market, served to validate the laissez-faire approach. After the dreadful Bank
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