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If zero-percent financing were a panacea, Detroit would be booming. Free money hasn’t helped the automakers. But maybe, just maybe it’ll save the economy.
My favorite quotes these days are from economists crowing about how the Fed is using every weapon at its disposal to prop up the economy. Trouble is, the Fed is kind of like Poland’s cavalry going up against Nazi tanks in September 1939.
We know how well that turned out for the Poles. Not so good for the Nazis in the long run, either. But they managed to do a hell of a lot of damage in a few short years before anyone figured out how to overpower them.
You’ll be fine. That’s the soothing advice a parent gives a 4-year-old who bangs his head on a coffee table. I would expect a little more from the leader of the free world, but that seems to be the basic White House message on the economy.
It’s technically correct that we “got through” the Depression. But it wasn’t because Americans elected FDR to be cheerleader-in-chief. It’s because FDR threw hundreds of ideas at the problem. Right, and then we fought a big war.
The bailout clearly isn’t going to be the end-all and be-all of too many economic crises on this planet. Nor is another interest-rate cut going to do the job. Haven’t we already had several hundred of those in the last decade?
If the crisis is truly one of confidence, then no technocratic solution will work. And nor will jawboning about giving those technocratic solutions more time to take effect. It’s ironic that a president who prides himself on taking action is now reduced to words in support of other people’s actions.
It’s stressful, no? Maybe we all could use a retreat to a nice spa, not just the frazzled execs at AIG.
I had to add just one more for today…
This photo collection puts that frozen Lego smile in a whole new light. It’s an unnerving successor to the 1970s-era yellow smiley face, since hijacked by MySpace advertisers.
I only wish the photographer had shaken the camera on his retake of Capa’s D-Day shot. You’ll know which one I mean if you grew up with the Time-Life history of World War II on a bookshelf somewhere in your house:
The Evening Keel 