Send this Article to Your Congressman
Just a superb piece about the financial crisis by Nicole Gelinas in the latest issue of City Journal. The best I've read, in fact.
Over the past year, hundreds of authors have published books on the crisis. What becomes clear—often despite the authors’ own intentions—after reading ten of the most significant of these works is that the mainstream narrative is wrong. Over the two decades leading up to 2008, financial markets were anything but free. The nuts-and-bolts government infrastructure that free markets require to thrive—healthy fear of failure, respect for the rule of law, and fair rules for everyone—was crumbling. The crisis books make clear, too, that Washington’s extraordinary rescues of Wall Street have eroded much of what’s left of free-market infrastructure in finance. Worse, Congress’s efforts to reform the industry will do yet more damage. The next time the financial world implodes, it will hurt the economy even more severely.
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Jun '10
Re: Send this Article to Your Congressman
Our markets are anything but free because large sectors are now controlled by the nation's "elites," which is to say an oligarchy. Angelo Codevilla published an article on the 16th at American Spectator entitled "America's Ruling Class - - And the Perils of Revolution." The article correctly identifies the current political struggle as one between the "elite class" and the "country class." I hate to be a drone about this across numerous threads, but apparently few people recognize the significance. The article could very well be the foundational document of a second American revolution. I hope someone here at Ricochet follows up.
May '10
Re: Send this Article to Your Congressman
One more pitch for Russ Roberts' very interesting discussion (EconTalk may be the- harrumph- second-best weekly podcast on the web) of this:
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2010/05/roberts_on_the_2.html
Also the prescient "too big to fail" interview with Minneapolis' own Gary Stern:
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2009/10/gary_stern_on_t.html
Jun '10
Re: Send this Article to Your Congressman
The problem with highly regulated markets--regulated well or badly--is that over time, participants in the market forget which market forces (and indicators) are real, and which market forces are artificial, supplied by Washington. The real forces survive. The artificial forces tend to fall apart under stress. At that point, the rules change overnight, and confidence disappears.
Jul '10
Re: Send this Article to Your Congressman
I am struck by the ease with which the "false narrative" is becoming cast as fact- as the first and second drafts of history. We conservatives seem to be helpless spectators as we watch the cultural juggernaut tear through our streets like bulls through Pamplona, knocking competing opinions and narratives out of the way.
Why is that? We're pretty smart people. Why are we sitting here two years out, reacting, always reacting, to the false first draft laid down by the left?