Life — September 4, 1931 — page 8: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "Economics Are So Simple" - Life Magazine Satire This page satirizes New Deal agricultural policy, likely from the 1930s. Two Southern cotton farmers discuss the government's crop destruction program (probably the Agricultural Adjustment Act), which paid farmers to reduce cotton production to raise prices. The satire mocks the policy's circular logic: destroying crops to create scarcity and higher prices seems absurd when one farmer gets wiped out by hurricane while another faces insurance schemes and egg-production problems—demonstrating how government intervention creates unintended consequences. The accompanying cartoons and brief humor pieces on education, barbering, and toucan economics reinforce the theme that "simple" economic solutions often backfire or ignore real human complexity.