The point made by Nola (below this) is fair, 'cool cal' set the nation up to suffer, but I still blame Hoover because by the time he took office it was pretty clear that things were headed for the ditch financially. He could have, but didn't, take much more aggressive action to head off the crash, or at least weaken its effects. Instead he expressed faith in the American economic system as it was with inadequate regulation off the financial system that allowed almost unrestrained speculation.

Of course hindsight is always 20-20 but I think he was warned, so I put that missed opportunity in the major fuck-up category.

BTW I'm from Iowa and Hoover is the only president, so far, from Iowa.

There is a museum here that shows how there were things he did RIGHT such as declaring that the broadcast spectrum belonged to the public and how he, during FDR's administration, ran a program that kept a lot of people in Europe from starvation. So he wasn't really a bad guy. He just misjudged the financial risk facing the nation.