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comment by kleinbl00

My guess is that there was so much crazy shit going on about that time that it was the ad-hoc solution arrived at by the SEC, GM and the NYSE (think GM trades on NYSE). There's an HBO movie called Too Big To Fail that, while not the best overview of the financial crisis of 2008, paints a much better picture of the regulatory shitstorm that ensued than any of the other books. While The Big Short very much shows the perspective of the traders, Too Big To Fail is pretty much a top-down view from the perspective of Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson.

Remember when we airlifted pallets of $100 bills into Iraq for no demonstrably good reason? The 2008 bailout of General Motors et. al. had a lot of the same charcteristics.





user-inactivated  ·  2878 days ago  ·  link  ·  

So, basically, they were making stuff up as they go along while at the same time showing off that they could do things just because they could? I actually find that somewhat comical for some reason. In all seriousness though, I hope we've learned some kind of lesson out of all of this. It'd be pretty hard not to.

kleinbl00  ·  2878 days ago  ·  link  ·  

The problem is that economics is a social science so lesson learned is subject to fashion. They will teach you in History about how the New Deal saved America; they will teach you in economics that it prolonged the depression, but only if you get a teacher who believes Friedman.

This is why Piketty went back to France.

snoodog  ·  2878 days ago  ·  link  ·  

All good points I agree with. Additional to learn lessons one needs to admit failure, the the moment japan is touting their economic policy as a success. The fashionable lesson right now is that bailouts and helicopter money drops work to boost the economy.