Initial post. Feb 16, 2015 4:50:16 PM PST

Last edited by the author on Feb 16, 2015 5:41:52 PM PST

The president was a Republican at the time (the cut and slash government programs type/the anti corporate regulation type) Herbert Hoover. He believed that if you were in trouble you should help yourself and not expect others to help you. This he called rugged individualism. Therefore he did not do a great deal to help those out without work.

It is not the function of the government to relieve individuals of their responsibilities to their neighbors, or to relieve private institutions of their responsibilities to the public. — Herbert Hoover

This is what his rugged individualist peers had to say:

There may be a recession in stock prices, but not anything in the nature of a crash.

- Irving Fisher, leading U.S. economist. New York Times, Sept. 5, 1929

This crash is not going to have much effect on business.

- Arthur Reynolds, Chairman of Continental Illinois Bank of Chicago, October 24, 1929

We feel that fundamentally Wall Street is sound, and that for people who can afford to pay for them outright, good stocks are cheap at these prices.

- Goodbody and Company market-letter quoted in The New York Times, Friday, October 25, 1929

There is nothing in the situation to be disturbed about.

- Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, Feb 1930

. the outlook continues favorable.

- HES Mar 29, 1930

Gentleman, you have come sixty days too late. The depression is over.

- Herbert Hoover, responding to a delegation requesting a public works program to help speed the recovery, June 1930

Fast forward to Housing Bubble of the mid-21st century:

. housing activity will remain healthy for some time to come.

- David Lereah, NAR’s chief economist, October 28, 2005

We’re now in the ‘middle innings’ of the current economic expansion, and the next economic recession is not yet in sight.

- David Seiders, Chief Economist, National Association of Home Builders, Jan 2006

If you own your own home free and clear, people will often refer to you as a fool. All that money sitting there, doing nothing.

- Anthony Hsieh, CEO Lending Tree

There is no national housing market, so there can’t be a national house-price bubble.

- Michael Youngblood, Managing Director, Friedman Billings Ramsey & Co