Andrew Ross Sorkin

So I remember being down at like Zuccotti Park, Occupy Wall Street, all of this conversation we're having now about socialism versus capitalism, like that happened immediately.

In 1929, that conversation did not happen immediately.

Part of the reason it didn't happen is because there was sort of like a slow roll on the economy and even the market.

So there was sort of a disconnect between the economy and the market.

People forget at the end of 29, the stock market actually was down only 17% by the end.

And so people thought it was actually gonna come back.

There were times when it actually seemed to be coming back and Hoover had this idea that he could, it was almost like a psychological problem and that the market and the economy were detached from each other.

He then starts making all of these sort of, frankly, mistakes.

Obviously the Fed doesn't flood the system.

Hoover decides he wants to raise taxes.

He does Smoot-Hawley with tariffs.

That's something he had pledged to do to try to get farmers to actually vote for him.

And he thought that was like a pledge that he had to keep.

And so there's a whole sort of set of policies that came into play.

And the Hoovervilles don't show up, being these sort of like tented camps, sort of thinks Ducati Park.

That doesn't happen really till 1932.

And when you go back and look at why Roosevelt won, it wasn't actually on the economy.

If you go and look at the polls, it was over prohibition, crazily enough.

And so it didn't have that sort of social effect.

Having said that, you know, famously Roosevelt, you know, on his inauguration day goes after the bankers in the inaugural address.