Has there ever been a field where there were so many so called experts who disagree with each other than the field of economics?
Lol, I think there must be a few that "tie", but none that exceed. Krugman is broadly liked because he talks sense, and he can express it. I head over to cafehayek for dissenting opinion. They keep arguing for the same laissez faire "solutions" that brought us to this crisis.
Have to agree with you here. Let's be honest. Bush was a terrible president. He got us into two hideously expensive wars with no apparent exit plan and a mission that seemed to expand almost daily. We defeated the Axis Powers in WWII and rebuilt europe in less time they we have been screwing around in Iraq and Afghanistan. And for what? We have turned Iraq from a shield against islamist radicalism into a colony of Iran. Afghanistan is even worse. We managed to kick out the taliban, our original goal, in a few months using local warlords. That wasn't good enough for the big thnkers at the State Department however, so we had to embark on a crazed nation-building exercise that has zero hope of success. Bush did attempt to rein in FNM and FRE, the two largely democrat slush funds at the crux of the housing finance crisis. He didn't do the obvious next step, which was to rein in the anything goes mortgage underwriting process that caused the nuclear meltdown of our financial markets. Obama of course came into office totally unqualified and lacking the leadership skills to handle the situation he was thrust into. So he and Pelosi managed to make an even more hideous mess. Now we find ourselves with a debt that can be paid only by printing money, an increasingly angry and polarized electorate and no consensus on even what the problems are, much less the solutions.
the financial blogosphere. the same hundreds of folks that think krugman is a complete jackass. it is quite obvious that you do not know all that much about macro economics. and i dont mean just from this thread, either.
Laissez-faire policy is not what brought us to this crisis. see, this is what i mean when i say you are not properly equipped to get into an economic discussion. you want to try again or would you like me to give you the short, dirty version?
hardly. it was a system of crony capitalism. government officials and regulatory agencies in bed with Wall street instead of enforcing laws that already existed. laws and governing bodies existed to prevent the crash, they just weren't followed and enforced. in some cases, the governing bodies responsible for preventing the bubbles and crashes were complicit in creating and furthering them along (greenspan and the fed, for instance). and so the answer was "put on more regulation". you can put all the regulation in the world stacked on, but if none of it is followed (and we're still in the exact same situation we were back then, only with MORE intervention) it is useless. government created an environment where risky and fraudulent deals were encouraged - not held in check. this is quite different from Laissez-faire economics where government simply has no rules, laws to protect/regulate or inclination to get involved in business transactions of any kind. im rather shocked i have to explain this to you, ghoul.
Huh? You're arguing semantics here... It doesn't matter what you call it. I use the term "laissez faire" to denote a system in which regulations are not enforced. Whether that occurs because of poor enforcement or because there are no regulations in the first place is utterly immaterial. All that matters is the end result. I'm rather shocked I have to explain this to you, 青岛 .
there is a huge, massive difference between no regulation and complicity to commit fraud, poorly enforced regulation, etc.. huge. and the latter is not "laissez faire" by any stretch of the imagination (except, perhaps yours).