Today Fed Chair Bernanke
"... bluntly warned reluctant lawmakers Tuesday they risk a recession with higher unemployment and increased home foreclosures if they fail to pass the Bush administration's $700 billion plan to bail out the financial industry."What are the competing costs involved? Long-term cost to taxpayers/country of $700,000,000,000 bail-out versus long-term cost to taxpayers/country of recession?
[Bernanke: Recession more likely without bailout]
Is it worth $700,000,000,000 to reduce risk of recession, or to mitigate effects of recession should one occur anyway?
I am unprepared to undertake this analysis, but it seems reasonable to ask both Congress and the Administration to provide at least a back-of-the-envelope calculation of relative risks. Who knows, maybe it'd be better in the long-run to let the financials fail.
Aside: "... in the long run":
"Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs.Have a nice day!
In the long run we are all dead."
[John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946), British economist. A Tract on Monetary Reform, ch. 3 (1923)]
1 comment:
Check out this blog:
http://www.scottgoold.org/bailout.php
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