During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Americans desperately needed bargains. But President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed laws that forced businesses to charge above-market prices for everything. He made discounting a crime! FDR did this even though antitrust laws provided penalties for private individuals who acted in restraint of trade and charged above-market prices. These laws were passed by “progressives” – his ideological brethren. First came FDR’s National Industrial Recovery Act, considered the flagship of the New Deal. FDR signed that in June 1933, climaxing his heroic Hundred Days of legislative mania. Back then, the economic situation was considered so … Continue reading How FDR Promoted Price-Gouging