The Forgotten Man

On the bus ride up to New York on Friday I finished reading Amity Shlaes' history of the Great Depression The Forgotten Man. Great read -- or as good a read as a history of such subject matter can be to the average reader. Beyond its documentation of how U.S. government policy under both Hoover and Roosevelt served to hinder recovery from the economic calamity the book is also chock full of anecdotes.

A particularly striking one noted how FDR decided to increase the price of gold by 21 cents since, he explained, "three times seven is a lucky number" (the quote is courtesy of Henry Morgenthau, a top FDR adviser). Imagine the outcry if such an anecdote were to escape from the White House today!

I also found the story about Roosevelt filing his 1937 tax returns quite enlightening:

As [Roosevelt] would write to Commissioner Guy Helvering, "I am wholly unable to figure out the amount of the tax for the following reason..." His own tax problem -- one involving the timing of tax obligations -- was something only experts could solve. "As this is a problem of higher mathematics," wrote FDR, "may I ask that the Bureau let me know the balance due? The payment of $15,000 doubtless represents a good deal more than half of what the eventual tax will be."

I almost laughed when I read this. Essentially the tax code is sufficiently complicated that a man of Roosevelt's intelligence simply wrote a check for 15 grand and told the IRS to figure out what he owed. If the president can't figure out how to calculate his return, why should the rest of us be expected to? It isn't as though the tax code has gotten any less complicated since then...