Soros said the United States needed "radical and unorthodox policy measures" to prevent a repeat of the Great Depression of the early 20th century that include recapitalizing banks and writing down the country's accumulated debt.
Also, he said, it should create more money to offset the collapse of credit and then rapidly pull that cash out of the system when inflation emerges. The government would have to be very nimble in the timing of such moves, he said.
"If they are successful...the deflationary pressures will be replaced by the specter of inflation and the authorities will have to drain the excess money from the economy almost as quickly as they pumped it in. Of the two operations the second one is going to be, politically, even more difficult than the first," he said.
Is Soros - freaking - insane? Has this ever worked in history? Just once???Hang on, it gets even better:
At the same time, the $700 billion financial bailout known as TARP for Troubled Assets Relief Program had been carried out in a "haphazard and capricious way" and "without proper planning," he said.
"Unfortunately it was misused and the way it was done has poisoned the well. It has created tremendous ill will toward putting up more money," Soros said.
I was stunned as well, when $700 billion was misspent by the bright bureaucrats in our Federal Government.Let me ask you a question - last time you went to the Post Office to mail a package - how long did you wait?
Well those are the SAME DAMN BUREAUCRATS in charge of allocating this slush fund!
Why are people shocked when things our government does don't work out as planned? They NEVER work out as planned!
That's what the free market is for. (Check out John Stossel's excellent 20/20 piece about the limitations of government, and the power of the free market - highly recommended).
Now George Soros is not stupid - he's one of the most successful speculators of all-time.
So has he just lost his mind?
Have years of socialist dreaming finally penetrated and damaged his cranium?
Or is he just screwing with us common folk?
5 comments:
Has it ever worked before? It has never been attempted before. There has never been a time when the world economy was crashing while operating in a fiat monetary system in which the country holding the reserve currency tried to reinflate the economy. So who knows if it will work. The question is really whether something else will work better. Suggestion? Doing nothing is a non-starer.
I've had to wait in line at the post office but guess what? Postal workers are not redecorating their offices with tax payer money while their companies are tanking (if you wait at the post office, you know they haven't redecorated since the Johnson administration). It is time to stop bemoaning the inefficiencies of government agencies and realize we are looking behind the veritable curtain at unregulated markets' Oz and it is not pretty. I'd take the post office over Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Country Wide any day. And p.s., I have never had to wait in line at the post office as long as I've had to wait for Time/Warner customer service.
My suggestion? Doing nothing is exactly what I'd suggest.
While it is a political non-starter, we *should* let the failed banks fail, let the failed auto companies fail, and purge all the rottenness from the system, to borrow a phrase.
The competent people will pick up the pieces and start building again - sooner than everyone thinks. Right now we seem determined to follow the mistakes of Japan and have a lost decade of our own.
Don't have to worry about Merrill, Lehman, or CW anymore - Mr. Market was 3 for 3 in picking those jokers off. Time Warner would get picked off if they didn't have a pseudo-government granted monopoly - which is the source of your frustration - they wouldn't get away with a "4 hour service window" if you had other viable options.
A better comparison would be with true "free market" companies, such as Zappos - go ahead, order a pair of shoes right now, it will change your life.
>Doing nothing is a non-starer.
Most depressions prior to the Great Depression were over in two years, all of them in five. The Great Depression lasted much, much longer precisely because every trick was pulled out of the hat and none worked. Remember the 1921 depression? Of course not, because Harding did nothing and depression was over in no time. See Thomas Woods' "The Harding Way". Harding achieved something by doing nothing, Hoover and FDR exactly the opposite. And here we are, repeating exactly the wrong thing. As Einstein said, "Two things are infinite: Universe and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the Universe".
Excellent comment Alex - well said, I couldn't agree with you more. I just did a review of Rothbard's "America's Great Depression" - he also mentioned the Harding example.
Thx for the article link...great piece.
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