Discuss Jonah Goldberg's Nov. 18 Op-Ed column
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From the Los Angeles Times
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Goldberg... When are you going to start writing articles on how the Bush led Republicans steered the country in this horrible ditch? When are you going to acknowledge that your unfailing support of George W. Bush, and that other hacks like you have done a disservice to the public? When are you going to resign your post since you've failed so miserably at being a "news" journalist?
G.L. Moore @ 2:49 PM PST, Nov 19, 2008
Well said! I couldn't agree more.
Ken @ 9:37 AM PST, Nov 19, 2008
We have abused our money system to the point that it is broken. The FED's past policy, of "saving" the economy each time it was about to have a minor recession, is EXACTLY the reason why we have now accumulated the Huge Overhanging Debt that will crush us. It is those past "rescue missions" or attempts at Social Engineering -- using a Centrally-Planned, Command-Economy approach -- with which the FED has helped to facilitate the morass we are now in. And now the FED and Treasury are going to use the SAME strategy to save us? Where's the logic?
Ben Logician @ 8:50 AM PST, Nov 19, 2008
We have been conditioned into thinking that more credit, more debt, will save us. Because yes, in many preceding business cycles, it has done exactly THAT. But this approach will not work ad infinitum. There will come a cycle when it does not work. This could be that cycle.
Business Cycle @ 8:47 AM PST, Nov 19, 2008
What Ben Bernanke "learned" from being a student of the Great Depression is exactly the wrong thing. He "learned" that we did not waste ENOUGH money. He might have a very good chance to painfully re-learn the correct lesson of the 1930-s "this time around". Easy money is what got us into this mess. It ain't gonna be easy money that gets us out of this mess. Even Rodney Dangerfield could have figured that out! Let's pour all the gasoline we can find onto to THIS fire! Get those money hoses out! One day, Bernanke will wake up and think -- "what was I thinking?"
Ben Jr. @ 8:46 AM PST, Nov 19, 2008
The "good" that will come from this mess, is that we might FINALLY learn the real, one and true, lesson of the 1930-s. Eventually the economists and theoreticians will also figure it out. Once they do, we'll be in a much better position in 80 years when the next cycle of Credit Contraction begins. The Austrian economists have known this all along -- that is a school of economics that does not believe in the Keynesian "solutions". The Austrian School knows that for every artificially-induced easy-money-driven boom there is an equal and opposite BUST, no matter how long you put it off.
Friend of the Trend @ 8:45 AM PST, Nov 19, 2008
Ted Turner said this past weekend on CNN when he was interviewed for his new book CALL ME TED, "the piper has to be paid". And the piper is getting antsy. As for Obama, let him project all the "confidence" he can. It's better than projecting nothing, given that his administration will inevitably follow grievously harmful policies anyway. Anyone else in that position would have had the same political imperative to follow the identical policy. I suppose that for those of us who will be unemployed, being not confident is not as comforting as being really, really confident, even though we will still be unemployed. Some consolation.
Bubblenomics @ 8:44 AM PST, Nov 19, 2008
One "good" thing (that is really, really, really BAD) is that we will get the full money-flood treatment our money system supposedly did not get in the Great Depression. Of course the 1930-s did actually get this "treatment" although a little too belatedly for Bernankes liking. This is bad in one very serious sense -- it won't work and will cause more grievous problems that will then simmer and metastasize. We will indeed prolong the agony -- worldwide. Just like in the 1930-s. This is just a bad experiment -- and that is all that it is, an EXPERIMENT, because there is NO theoretical work that supports it.
A. Viirlaid @ 8:41 AM PST, Nov 19, 2008
Today we need to protect those who have saved. But bad banks should be facilitated into the waiting ownership-arms of the sound banks, the ones who have followed sound practices, and whose standards need to spread and be employed in the rest of the industry. The failed banks should not be allowed to get government loans to then facilitate their own takeovers of the sound banks. In the U.K. two bad banks are being rushed into a merger just to get "sound banking" going again. Yikes! Combining the bad banks into super-banks that then are allowed to maintain their failed investing philosophies is just asking for more trouble.
I. S. Mel Arat @ 8:39 AM PST, Nov 19, 2008
The government, like in the 1930-s, will now do what it supposedly "failed" to do in the 1930-s. That is a misread of history. But that does not matter. Because no one is going to change, at least not "this time around". Political reality won't allow it, even if President Obama had advisors who knew better, such as Paul Volcker. Nevertheless there are a few things that are being done differently than in the 1930-s, and a few of these are indeed a good thing. At that time the FED allowed banks to fail and depositors to lose their hard-earned life savings. This was wrong because it penalized those savers who had played by the rules.
Sudosai Entist @ 8:37 AM PST, Nov 19, 2008
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