So far, I am not terribly unhappy. Perhaps we were all wrong about this man. Maybe I can live with him so long as he continues this course of not bringing us the radical changes he promised.
While I strongly disapprove of the Keynsian-redux we are seeing as response to an exaggerated economic crisis, the impulse to use fiscal policy to affect the overall economy (a strategy fruitless at best and disastrous at worst) is not limited to those politicians with a D after thier names. In these times of "Change we can believe in (but not really)" I welcome centrist economic advisers because I feared something more radical. This crew could have just as likely served in the administration of a moderate Republican--like McCain. Geithner provides continuity with Paulson (the advantage here is, of course, negligible except that markets like continuity); Summers is an ardent free-trade advocate and consistent free marketeer; and Romer has written extensively about the negative effect of tax increases on investment. At least Paul Krugman isn't in the picture--yet.
Perhaps, like the Dems for the past eitght years I can hope only to grasp at straws, but unlike the Dems for the past eight years I am actually looking for straws to grasp.
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8 comments:
...um, did you take your meds this morning?
Nope, but I did run out of cocaine...er...coffee
Yes I did. We are not on the brink of a Great Depression. Unemployment is at 6.5% instead of 25%. We aren't even approaching Canadian unemployment levels. Output has contracted half of one percent instead of about 30 percent. Hell, we aren't even having as bad a time as we did in the late 1970s.
The crisis has been exaggerated.
The late 1970s occurred SINCE the Great Depression, and we still aren't there. Of course inflationary bailout after infaltionary bailout funded by taxpayers and government debt may get us there pretty soon.
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