The Great Myths of the Great Depression

On this day in 1933 FDR unveiled the Civil Works Administration, which he claimed would create 4 million jobs. In "The Great Myths of the Great Depression" Larry Reed of the Foundation for Economic Education provides this analogy: "If a thief goes house to house robbing everybody in the neighborhood, then heads off to a nearby shopping mall to spend his ill-gotten loot, it is not assumed that because his spending 'stimulated' the stores at the mall he has thereby performed a national service or provided a general economic benefit."