No, but we’ve taken big steps in that direction. For example, the government owns a large insurance company (AIG).  More importantly, it has nationalized 95% of the single largest component of the financial sector: home mortgages. From “Recent Developments in Mortgage Finance“, John Krainer, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Economic Letter, 26 October 2009. Federal Housing Administration …
Summary: The Obama Administration is continuing the Bush team’s Wall Street friendly policies, probably because they believe, as do most economists, that the downturn will hit bottom in the 2nd half of this year, and slow growth will resume next year. That’s bad. As a result they are missing an opportunity to fix the financial system, clearing …
One of the saddest aspects of 21st America is our parochialism, esp in public policy. We consider America the exemplar of best practices — sometimes along with the UK — usually with little knowledge of the ROW (a revealing phrase, “rest of the world”). Often global phenomena are seen purely as resulting from US developments, …
A free lesson from Russia: how to manage a banking crisis Read More »
Amidst all the blather about the financial crisis, I believe two things are clear. We — everybody — have more questions than answers. We, the American people, are fools. These events should spark thought about our fitness for self-government. This post discusses the questions, the details about the crisis. As usual for this site, let us …
What do we know about the financial crisis? What are the key questions? Read More »
I strongly recommend reading this, an explanation by a noted economist of why the nationalization of AIG was unnecessary — there were alternatives (which were legal, unlike the dubious course chosen by Paulson and Bernanke). Printed in full, with permission of the author. “The transformation of the USA into the USSRA (United Socialist State Republic …
Another voice warning about the nationalization of AIG Read More »
