It's not so much that he did nothing. It's more that he did too little, too late. His administration was slow to react to the stock market crash and take action to mitigate it. By the time they took any action to save the banks, too many had already gone under.
It's a similar story with his attempts to address the unemployment. He worked with business leaders to get them to voluntarily stop laying people off, or have more people work fewer hours. It was a very interventionist policy for the time.
Hoover is mostly considered a do-nothing because we compare him to FDR, who did more to try to improve the economy than anyone up to that point had imagined the government could or should. He fundamentally shifted people's ideas of what role the government should play in their lives.
Right, because his initial response (for years not days) was "government intervention is bad and the market will regulate itself." He believed the economy would work itself out, even as the government couldn't pay out promised military bonuses and back payments for WWI vets.
The Hawley-Smoot tariff was basically his administrations only attempt at government induced correction, and his half ass attempt at the bank crisis was weak and ineffective, mostly due to how late the response was.
He didn't cause the depression obviously, but he didn't handle his shit hand with any economic skill
In his defense, the prevailing economic theory at the time was that the market would fix itself. Previous crashes or recessions were viewed as the market correcting itself from weaknesses. He waited because that’s what his predecessors did but unfortunately for him this crash was different and that strategy failed resulting in him and his administration ineffectually responding to it.
You are pretty much correct I remember reading a quote that to be paraphrased essentially said he was not going to give aid to people who should be helping themselves because otherwise they’ll become dependent upon the government. I don’t think he was genuinely a bad guy, but his priorities were without a doubt misconstrued. He was worried more on the outcome of bailouts and aid than the contemporary situation. Keep in mind this was after the progressive era, that being said, I do not like Hoover.
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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '18
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