Friday, September 26, 2008

Financial crises and the federal government

I thought this was an interesting article. What do you think?

Much of the economic policy talk that is being thrown around right now is seriously over my head, much as I wish it were not. It does not make sense to me to have the government swoop in and save us from our financial woes. On the other hand, people with much more economic know-how than myself seem to think it is the only way to save us from global financial disaster.

Still, $700 BILLION???

How good an idea is it, really, to have Washington suddenly "owning" half of Wall Street? Their own track record with debt is less than stellar.

And where, exactly, is this tremendous amount of money going to come from?

1 comment:

Elena Johnston said...

I think it's a little bit like the Iraq situation. Even folks who think we shouldn't have invaded in the first place have to admit that we have a deep moral obligation now. "You break it, you buy it."

I don't like the federal government being so deeply involved in the economy, either. But like it or not, it is the federal government which gave the banking industry such enormous power over our economy.

Because of federal decisions long ago, if the banks go down, we all go down. Having placed us at the mercy of bankers decisions, the federal government now has a very real responsibility to rescue us now that everything has gone wrong.

I've given up trying to imagine what a just solution would look like--it's just a bad situation in the first place.