Interesting column in the Washington Post about how over-giddy experimentation on the part of President Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression prolonged the economic downturn. One interesting anecdote about how the president arbitrarily tried to set a price for gold:

What horrified markets even more was that FDR managed the operation personally, day by day, over a breakfast tray. No one ever knew what the increase would be. One Friday in November 1933, for example, Roosevelt told Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau that he thought the gold price ought to be raised 21 cents. Why that amount, Morgenthau asked. "Because it's three times seven," FDR replied.

Let that be a lesson to today's politicos who seem to vying for membership in the economic-cure-of-the-month club.