During the Presidency of Herbert Hoover Wall Street Crash of 1929 happened. Hoover is criticized for doing almost nothing to stop the resulting Great Depression. Britain end it's Great Depression by ending the gold standard. So What if Hoover did same ? POD is that Hoover ends the Gold Standard. He bails the Bank through deficit spending. Thereby preventing the Bank runs. To stimulate the economy he constructs the Interstate Highway, Establishes Universal Health Care and Free college. To further stimulate the economy he expands the Navy by adopting the two-power standard and expands the military to 2 million soldiers.
Hoover bails out the Banks stopping Great Depression
- Thread starter Ohfshkssgb
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So, you're basically asking for Hoover to be Roosevelt.
Remember that, among other criticisms of Roosevelt's programs, he described the New Deal's National Recovery Administration and Agricultural Adjustment Administration as "fascistic", and he called the 1933 Banking Act a "move to gigantic socialism". That should tell you just how likely he was to do things like that.
Remember that, among other criticisms of Roosevelt's programs, he described the New Deal's National Recovery Administration and Agricultural Adjustment Administration as "fascistic", and he called the 1933 Banking Act a "move to gigantic socialism". That should tell you just how likely he was to do things like that.
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Yeah that'd be great, but absolutely not happening.
I'd believe a 1930 USA Communist Revolution timeline before a Hoover New Deal.
-- Eichengreen & Temin, "Fetters of Gold and Paper" [2010]
I'd believe a 1930 USA Communist Revolution timeline before a Hoover New Deal.
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RamscoopRaider
Donor
You don't need Hoover to be Roosevelt, you need him to be Harding and for Benjamin Strong to last another two or three years before kicking the bucket
Strong in his role as head of the New York Fed, and first among equals of the Fed, effectively ignored the gold standard in 1922 to stabilize the money supply and continued to stretch the definition of the Gold Standard throughout the 20s to keep prices stable. He may have some responsibility for the severity of the Depression, in that he kept interest rates lower than they would have been so that Europe could recover from WWI better and pay the US back, but by the 1928 he realized he screwed up and raised interest rates and limited credit to try and choke off the bubble. He then died on October 6th 1928 after complications from Diverticulitis, about a year before the Depression
After Strong died the Fed shifted from maintaining price stability, or trying to keep the money supply stable, to a Real Bills Doctrine, where they would only make loans that were backed by paper representing goods in production. As a result at a time when lots of companies and especially banks needed loans, they could not get them as demand for physical goods had dropped, so the Fed was giving out fewer loans to banks. This was made worse by the Fed's "Direct Pressure" initiative, which was meant to punish banks for getting involved in the stock market bubble by not loaning to banks that provided "speculative" loans, and had such a nasty inquisition process for determining whether or not a bank issued "speculative" loans that those who did not still would not get bailed out
So Hoover does like Harding does and lets the Fed do its thing, Strong keeps the Fed lending money to banks, fewer banks fail, more businesses can get loans, and the Great Depression is probably more like 1919-1920
Hmm... My Grandfather is not bankrupted by his investment in a local bank? It went under in 1930 or 31. As a investor and bank officer the law in those days led to the seizure of his farm/s and other investments to cover the banks debts. That could lead to me coming into adulthood in the 1970s as a upper middle class rich kid and as....ole with a overblown sense of entitlement. Probably running the family business down after my father retires circa late 1990s. Instead my siblings and I had to actually study in school, work our own way up & actually earn our money 
Then again maybe we'd have avoided rich kid syndrome and through skill and hard work built the family business further.
Then again maybe we'd have avoided rich kid syndrome and through skill and hard work built the family business further.
Better question is how to have someone other than Hoover President.
Of course the problem was not all Hoover. Congress was dominated by fiscal conservatives and opponents of Socialism. Roosevelt pushed his actions through 1933 - 1934 because the people controlling policy previous were literally bankrupt. Roosevelt or anyone else attempting a bank bailout in 1930 or 31 is going to be stalled by a Congress that won't support such nonsense.
Mellon felt the government should not intervene, and needed to let banks, businesses and individual households sink or stay afloat on their own, there was no saving the weak ones.
A common 19th Century attitude. The expectation was things would sort them selves out in a year or two. There was also a old attitude that people in financial distress were suffering from a moral failing. Investors, bank officers, and the home or business owners affected were all in trouble because the lacked the back bone and fiber for success. No point in coddling them. It would be just good money after bad. And of course those who were still in business did not want to see the failing competition propped up.
It should also be noted that most Americans (including Hoover) in late 1929 and 1930 thought that the downturn was just a bad recession.
It wasn't until 1931 that Americans realized that they were in a full-on depression. That was when Americans started to demand government action.
He needed to be a rosevelt, not necessarily FDR but he could have been Teddy (still a big ask admittedly) by 1929 only 20 or so years have passed since rosevelts new nationalism which covers most of the stuff OP outlined. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Nationalism_(Theodore_Roosevelt)