Little-Acorn
02-18-2009, 04:05 PM
...or in case you've taken the media's word for the causes (which amounts to the same thing).....
Dr. Sowell gives a succinct description of most of the events leading up to the present financial meltdown. He leaves politics mostly out of it, which unfortunately eliminates accounts of who tried to stop the crisis and who tried to keep it going.
A good summary, all the same.
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http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2009/02/18/upside_down_economics?page=full&comments=true
Upside Down Economics
by Thomas Sowell
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
From television specials to newspaper editorials, the media are pushing the idea that current economic problems were caused by the market and that only the government can rescue us.
What was lacking in the housing market, they say, was government regulation of the market's "greed." That makes great moral melodrama, but it turns the facts upside down.
It was precisely government intervention which turned a thriving industry into a basket case.
An economist specializing in financial markets gave a glimpse of the history of housing markets when he said: "Lending money to American homebuyers had been one of the least risky and most profitable businesses a bank could engage in for nearly a century."
That was what the market was like before the government intervened. Like many government interventions, it began small and later grew.
Dr. Sowell gives a succinct description of most of the events leading up to the present financial meltdown. He leaves politics mostly out of it, which unfortunately eliminates accounts of who tried to stop the crisis and who tried to keep it going.
A good summary, all the same.
-----------------------------------------
http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2009/02/18/upside_down_economics?page=full&comments=true
Upside Down Economics
by Thomas Sowell
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
From television specials to newspaper editorials, the media are pushing the idea that current economic problems were caused by the market and that only the government can rescue us.
What was lacking in the housing market, they say, was government regulation of the market's "greed." That makes great moral melodrama, but it turns the facts upside down.
It was precisely government intervention which turned a thriving industry into a basket case.
An economist specializing in financial markets gave a glimpse of the history of housing markets when he said: "Lending money to American homebuyers had been one of the least risky and most profitable businesses a bank could engage in for nearly a century."
That was what the market was like before the government intervened. Like many government interventions, it began small and later grew.