Philosopher George Santayana stated a now famous proverb that "those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it." The best current example of this is what just happened in the United Sates with the huge government spending in rescuing the criminals of Wall Street who took us over the financial cliff by their irresponsible speculation, led by Wall St. big-wig, Bernie Madoff. Madoff was the only one to go to jail so far, the rest got bailed out by the taxpayers and the socialist policies of President Obama. If this was not enough, Obama has now passed health care reform, commonly referred to as"Obamacare;" increasing government spending like drunken sailors on a night out.
Historians have confirmed that the heavy government expenditure by the FDR administration during the depression of the 1930s did nothing to end the depression. In today's Wall Street Journal this point is well documented in an article titled "Did FDR End the Depression?" After all the spending made by the Roosevelt administration in its first eight years, the unemployment rate in 1939 was at the same rate as in 1932 - 20%. Obviously we've failed to learn from history so we have been condemned to repeat it. In Europe where they did not have such government spending the unemployment rate was 12% during the same period according to the article.
Another historical economics lesson we've failed to learn is minimum wage laws. In his popular book, "Basic Economics" economist Thomas Sowell states: "By the simplest and most basic economics, a price artificially raised tends to cause more to be supplied and less to be demanded than when prices are left to be determined by the free market." Economist in the US, Europe and Canada have long known that minimum wage laws have the opposite effect, increasing unemployment, yet we routinely keep passing these damaging laws. The main reason, for this is thought to be that this is popular for politicians and will gain them goodwill from the voters, even though it makes no economic sense.
