Political Bloviation

David Seaton’s News Links: Milton Friedman turns in his grave: our Berlin Wall

“Until recently, it was possible to tell the Chinese, the Indians or those who suffered significant financial crises in the past two decades that there existed a financial system both free and robust. That is the case no longer.”

In the same way that “shock and awe” is “no longer”. Or that Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and the value of the dollar “no longer” represent anything “free and robust”. There is more than one way to go bankrupt.

Wow, he really got his panties in a twist over the Bear-Stearns bailout didn’t he? While I think that bailing out the speculators on Wall Street is a bad idea, sort of formalizing private profit and public risk, I don’t think it’s all that horrible. Most of this comes back to a intentional failure of regulation, a concerted attempt to cripple and capture the regulatory infrastructure. The Grover Norquists of the world who wanted to shrink government “down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub” got their wish. The results are in, they were flatly wrong and many will suffer because of it.

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