In troubled times we race to retrace our steps, figure out what went wrong and concern ourselves with finding answers that we have concluded in the past. Separated by 74 years two campaigns hold more comparisons that one can count off with both hands. Two men, one country, and the determination to bring change to a nation close to ruins. Franklin D. Roosevelt ran for Presidency in 1932 during a crucial time in the United States of America during which people were without hope and in fear of what was to come during the Great Depression. Today, our feet stand in the worst financial and economic crisis since the Great Depression but with the hope instilled in us by President-Elect Barack Obama that this nation once again will wait and see if great change will lift our great country once again. It is said, when one knows our past we are indeed securing a good future in preventing the repetition of past mistakes, so, why are we once again wrapped in fear of what is to come? What mistakes were made once again that caused this current financial state? Comparing the past and our present will reveal the answers that we seek and the solutions that we can take from them.
The causes of the Great Depression have been continuously debated among many yet the obvious reasons are concrete. Before we can look at the stock market crash which is what is widely seen as the trigger of the depression we must look at the prior years and the state of the economy at that time. World War I had only been a decade away. The aftermath of the war definitely changed the position the United States was in. Before the war the United States had traditionally been the “debtor” not the “creditor” but that all changed when Europe's lack of agriculture and need of food caused it to import food from th U.S. and borrow loans. In addition to this the United States became the financer of the war and continuously issued loans for other countries reconstruction. Because of this, American financial...