What else can we do to make matters worse?
The NYT reports: "The United States and Britain appear to be converging on a similar blueprint for stemming the financial chaos sweeping the world, one day before a crucial meeting of leaders begins in Washington that the White House hopes will result in a more coordinated response."
So I'm picturing guys with gasoline cans standing around a fire with a plan to put it out using the liquid at hand.
Comments (12)
Even in Japan, there is talk of using Japanese tax payer money to bail out US financial institutions. And the politicians here are doing it quietly because they know taxpayers will be extremely displeased to know what the government is doing with their savings.
So when will it be okay to go out into the streets with pitch forks? It seems all the governments with central banks are out to destroy the world....
Published: October 9, 2008 11:01 PM
... when both the cans and gasoline are provided by citizens coerced to buy them from certain providers befriending these guys? I'd say, how about forcing 'em citizens to surrogate the firemen?
Published: October 9, 2008 11:10 PM
Are there any 'industrialized' countries in the world that don't have a central bank? If so, they must be a blessed lot.
Published: October 9, 2008 11:11 PM
I don't know about 'industrialized', but Panama doesn't have a CB. I'd love to hear how they're doing now.
Published: October 10, 2008 12:26 AM
There are three possibilities; revival, revolution or collapse. Since revolution is a type of collapse I hope for revival.
BTW, Kind of a Carl Sagan variation...
Published: October 10, 2008 1:15 AM
gooddebate,
I hope that the plan for revival doesn't hinge on artificially low interest rates. Unfortunately, that seems to be the present gameplan. That combined with a general policy of price control and creeping corpratism. Basically our revival seems to be towards a command economy in the style of the New Deal, or Mussolini's Italy. If I had to wager on it though, I suspect that the natural tendency of economic laws will foil the machinations of our bald(ing) proto-Il Duces. Not before great damage is done to the people and the economy and a further ratcheting upwards of the state's scope and power (come the next time).
Published: October 10, 2008 2:59 AM
Das ist very interesting but stupid...not u's guy's but das 2-bald heads. Time for a constitutional revival?
Ya YA ya ya...das ist das constitution party time...
um-pa-pa
Published: October 10, 2008 6:33 AM
Artificially lower interest rates are price controls.
In Greenspans book, The Age of Turbulence, there's a passage on page 297 where Greenspan describes his debate with Li Peng and says that the US tried price controls (under Nixon) but learned that they don't work.
This conversation was during the period when Greenspan was head of the Fed and controlling US interest rates....
Published: October 10, 2008 8:37 AM
Pasi,
Since the Panamanian balboa is pegged directly to the US dollar (1:1), and the US dollar is legal tender there, I'd say they aren't doing so well.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/pm.html#Econ
Published: October 10, 2008 9:19 AM
George, Greenspan has also been an outspoken advocate of a non-fiat gold monetary system. Is he the biggest double-speaker in the history of economics, or is there some other explanation for his actions and rhetoric?
Published: October 10, 2008 9:40 AM
I'm terribly scared. I knew that this system - our system - that has been built in seventy or eighty years, in the U.S. since the 20's, that can be called "Corporate Socialism", would eventually and stroundously collapse.
I just didn't knew when would it happen. But that's not the point. The point is that it HAS collapsed. It has passed on. People are not going to trust it anymore.
So, it's a demised system. And, as such, it has to be replaced by something else. What would be that "something else"?
That's what's making me afraid. We are at crossroads now: the current system has crashed and died. We have only two options: or we go 100% socialism, or we go 100% free-market. There's no third option: the "third option", in fact, has failed.
Published: October 10, 2008 10:36 AM
Stanley,
Actually, I was thinking revival in the sense of returning to the basics of economics and politics. Sometimes in history a sense of 'we're going in the wrong direction, a bad and destructive direction' and a revival can occur. Unfortunately, it takes almost the entire community to act as one. There was almost a sense of it during the bailout legislation fight last week where the public was against it something like 100 to 1. Then there was a poll by Rasmussen about completely replacing congress that was wildly popular. I think there's massive sentiment that the government is on the wrong track but I don't see a motivation to action.
Published: October 10, 2008 10:51 AM