So that whole global financial meltdown…thing…turns out, it isn’t actually the fault of a mostly-unregulated free market, according to noted economist George W. “President” Bush. No, he said that. He got on TV (well, okay, on C-SPAN) and said that, out loud, without snickering. In fact, much of his speech was a loud defense of American-style capitalism and free trade.
It’s funny that he said all that, because I could have sworn that a more-or-less complete lack of oversight and regulation is exactly what led financial institutions big and small to invent new ways to invent new money, and use that new money to invest in new new money, until it all came crashing down in a torrential downpour of Monopoly money, bankruptcies, FDIC takeovers, mergers, devaluations and crying grandmothers. But what do I know, I just mock the economy, he picks the guys that actually ruin it.
Shamgar // Nov 14, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Yeah, the problem there is you equate what we had with a free market. Central banks manipulating interest rates and expanding credit to create malinvestment != free markets.
I will grant your point that oversight might have helped to stem some of the worst excesses, but the lack of oversight wasn’t the cause, and having oversight wouldn’t have prevented the eventual collapse.
Jason // Nov 14, 2008 at 3:06 pm
I’m not equating it, whatshisname did. I know the market today isn’t free, it’s just locked up inside a giant nature preserve.
When I am king, though, I will stick the market into a veal calf enclosure. That is how un-free I would make the market.