Depression 2010?
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on May 13th, 2010 4:31 am by HL
Depression 2010?
Robert Samuelson, Newsweek
WASHINGTON — It is now conventional wisdom that the world has avoided a second Great Depression. Governments and the economists who advise them learned the lessons of the 1930s. When the gravity of the financial crisis became apparent in late 2008, the response was swift and aggressive. Central banks like the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank dropped interest rates and lent liberally to threatened financial institutions and rattled investors. The United States and many countries approved “stimulus” programs of tax cuts and additional spending. Panic was halted. A…
The Real Reason Bennett Lost His Seat
The Case for Economic Doom and Gloom
John Judis, The New Republic
The American economy added 290,000 jobs in April, the biggest monthly increase in four years. Clearly, a recovery has taken hold. But how strong and buoyant will it be? Will we eventually get back to growth rates above four percent and to an unemployment rate of less than five percent? Or will this recovery sputter like the last one that began in 2002?The strongest case for gloom that I’ve read has been made by UCLA economic historian Robert Brenner in a new introduction that he wrote to the Spanish edition of his 2006 book, The Economics of Global Turbulence. New Republic readers…
Better to Have Let Greece Go Broke
Robert Robb, Arizona Republic
Surely it would have been better to let Greece go broke.The Greek national government doesn't have the cash to service its debt and private parties aren't willing to lend it any more. The natural solution would be for Greece to default and restructure its debt. Those who imprudently lent to Greece would incur a loss. The Greek government would have to curtail its spending to match what it could raise in taxes and from more demanding lenders.
