While Herbert Hoover's presidency is regarded as disastrous, he achieved quite a bit earlier in his career. He was a successful mining engineer, served as the head of the government's food administration during the First World War, and organized relief efforts in Europe during and immediately after the war. He was also an energetic secretary of commerce and was specifically asked to coordinate relief after the great 1927 floods along the Mississippi River. It's a pity he didn't quit while he was ahead.

My understanding (Andrew please correct me if I am wrong) is that the FED is not actually part of our government, instead it is a private orginization made up of privatly held banks, and they work for the government like any other contractor. The primary responsibility is to the share holders of those banks not us. The blame does not belong to the FED, it belong to policy makers and citizens who do not take the time to understand that.

I am 72 years old and been thinking some lately about things that have happened during that span. I see Hoover mentioned a lot in recent weeks but I'll bet most of you don't recall the term

"Hoover cart". It was around for some time but I remember it being used most frequently during the Truman/Dewey campaign. Looks like we will need those "carts" again to carry the few bits we have left after this Republican administration finishs with us.

You have to understand that many journalists today sit at their desks and report on information that is fed to them; no research, no questions to the source, no time to even understand the real dollars and sense behind the "real estate debacle!" As inane and uninformed as it may sound, I still believe that the market was manipulated by those entities who would profit when the market was red hot; these are the same entities out in the market today being properties at fire sale prices to make another economic killing! And so many journalists crave being considered one of the "insiders" end up not asking the hard questions and reporting on information fed to them. Whatever happened to Bernstein and Woodward?