Comments (10)

• Shed Plant

  I was shocked to read this in today's Times - shocked and pleased! I wrote to the author to thank him and he was polite :) .

  Published: July 2, 2009 2:06 PM

• fundamentalist

  Great article! Thanks!

  Readers might also want to check out the paper linked by Kline on the currenct financial crisis--A CRISIS OF POLITICS, NOT ECONOMICS:
  COMPLEXITY, IGNORANCE, AND POLICY FAILURE by the Critical Review Foundation at econlib.org.

  Here are two excerpts that made me think the authors might be channeling Hayek:

  “Perhaps a truly comprehensive set of regulations would cover the central bank, too. But the more types of policy have to be coordinated in a single comprehensive framework, the greater the
  cognitive burden placed on the super-regulator charged with designing the whole system—which brings us back to the overriding problem: the regulators’ all-too-human ignorance.”

  “The problem of the regulator and the scholar—and of the citizen of a social democracy—is essentially the same: There is too much information. This is why modern societies seem “complex.” And it creates the special kind of ignorance with which modern political actors are plagued:
  Not the costliness of information but its overabundance. This is a curse because, as a practical matter, it becomes impossible to learn, from the blooming, buzzing profusion of data about previous political actions and their effects, precisely the things we would need to know if we are to arrive at the correct theory, such that we avoid mistakes that contribute to systemic catastrophes. While from an optimistic perspective, therefore, the financial crisis might be seen as a “perfect storm” of unanticipated regulatory interactions, and thus as unlikely to be repeated, a more realistic view would treat the crisis, and the current intellectual response to it, as warning signs of more, and possibly worse, to come.”

  They don't come down hard enough on the Fed, but they do a better job than most mainstream economists.

  Published: July 2, 2009 2:39 PM

• J Cortez

  Excellent!

  Published: July 2, 2009 2:40 PM

• Charles S.

  Link to the article? I could not find it.

  Published: July 2, 2009 3:58 PM

• FTG

  If you read some of the comments at the end of the article, you see that about half of them are from people that somehow believe they were living under a free market system for the last 30 years or so. Talk about living in a Platonic cave...

  Published: July 2, 2009 4:08 PM

• Bruce Koerber

  The economic upheaval has unearthed the thieves and the thieves' dens.

  Published: July 2, 2009 10:10 PM

• Emil Suric

  "This is not intended as a criticism of Mr King or of the other members of his Monetary Policy Committee. No one should be allowed to set interest rates."

  The English are too polite. They need some "end the Bank of England" rallies.
  

  Published: July 2, 2009 11:25 PM

• Marc Sheffner

  Holy Cow! A free-marketeer? In Britain?? In the Times??? "And now for something completely different" (that's Brit-speak for "more of the same"): check out this 18-year-old libertarian.

  Published: July 3, 2009 5:24 AM

• Current

  Jamie Whyte was a radio rent-a-philosopher for a bit. He's quite good. His book "Bad Thoughts" is good.

  He's written some fun stuff for the IEA about prohibition.
  

  Published: July 3, 2009 5:48 AM

• End the Fed

  And get rid of the Federal Reserve while you're at it. Oops, never mind, they're both owned by the same people.

  Published: July 6, 2009 4:29 PM