. . . apparently the Bush administration never considered this route.

I guess the "Bush administration" must have put some heavy mojo on Dodd and Frank. Turned them into zombies -- and all this time they looked and talked like free men able to think and act for themselves -- maybe even legislate on their own.

Fool me once . . . .

Posted at October 8, 2008 7:43 AM in response to The UK Bails Out Banks the Right Way

GDP (GNP in them olden days) has never been an adequate marker of social health and/or wellbeing, and very few people would argue it is, and yet --

Almost all of our elite economists and politicians accept it as a measure of policy success and plan those policies in consideration of their effect on GDP.

Without it, what do have to talk about?

Posted at October 8, 2008 6:51 AM in response to Follow up Tom Brokaw wouldn't allow

The airline industry simply could not exist without government subsidy.

Why not?

Note: The governmental costs you list need not constitute subsidies.

Posted at October 8, 2008 5:31 AM in response to Follow up Tom Brokaw wouldn't allow

You did mean "health of an [economy]" rather than "society," yes?

And yes, I did mean to imply that no increase in the nominal price of an economy's stock market in 24 years is pretty good proof that the economy is not doing well.

Why it is not doing well -- following Bernanke's prescriptions, perhaps? -- is another question.

Posted at October 8, 2008 5:26 AM in response to Follow up Tom Brokaw wouldn't allow

But erica, you don't have a subject named in the next to last paragraph.

In your example who is going be dumping Ms. No-Got-Rocks "out on the street"? Who is going to "short-sell" the home she's currently residing in to her?

If you say the taxpayers, how did the taxpayers acquire the mortgage which is going to be crammed-down from its current outstanding balance to the current value of the home? How much did the taxpayers pay for that mortgage? In other words how much are the taxpayers going to lose in the transaction?

Note. The house won't necessarily "sit empty"; it can be rented out by the purchaser who acquired it at the sheriff's sale .

Posted at October 8, 2008 5:13 AM in response to Follow up Tom Brokaw wouldn't allow

I think we should pour taxpayer money into banks, into infrastructure projects, and into buying out mortgages, the latter in order to prop up home prices -- sort of follow the Japanese model.

The Nikkei* closed today at 9203.32 or 7% below where it stood at the beginning of 1984 -- over 24 years ago.

* An index of 225 stocks trading on the Tokyo Exchange and a pretty good representation of the health of the second largest economy in the world.

Posted at October 8, 2008 4:29 AM in response to Follow up Tom Brokaw wouldn't allow

I will say one thing, though.

I consider Hoover to be a New Dealer in all but name.

While not all of Hoover's policies were adopted by the Roosevelt Administration, most were. And too, facts on the ground having changed post-1932, Hoover himself would likely have abandoned those of his policies that Roosevelt later abandoned had he been reelected.

Posted at October 8, 2008 2:32 AM in response to Follow up Tom Brokaw wouldn't allow

Nope.

Posted at October 8, 2008 2:24 AM in response to Follow up Tom Brokaw wouldn't allow

"snarky" -- Irritable or short-tempered; irascible. Also, sarcastically critical or mocking and malicious.

Nothing snarky about my comment! FYI I'm a "liquidationist."

But on this board you've got to defend that apostate view -- and sticking up for Andrew Mellon would be a good place to start.

New Dealers: "Turning Recessions into Depressions one step at a time."

Posted at October 8, 2008 2:09 AM in response to Follow up Tom Brokaw wouldn't allow

Andrew Mellon is IN THE HOUSE.

Posted at October 8, 2008 1:21 AM in response to Follow up Tom Brokaw wouldn't allow