Northern Rock and the Taxpayer
Press coverage of the Northern Rock, credit crisis, etc has been all over the place. Business editors of newspapers are suddenly experts on monetary policy, able to tell Ben Bernanke how it should be done. There's been almost no consistency either, with sometimes the same article appearing to both demand government intervention, and attack it. On the whole there has been much criticism of the Fed - This was a particular favourite.Alan Greenspan, the Fed chairman's celebrated predecessor, spent 20 years putting off the day of reckoning by cutting the cost of money at the first whiff of trouble.
TWENTY YEARS putting off the day of reckoning? So it should have been in 1987, 1988, 1989 and so on? Given the US economy must have nearly doubled in size in those 20 years I suspect almost everyone would take the putting off, rather than the apparently desirable pain.
This story quotes the Taxpayer's Alliance. I have some sympathy for their view, although the political realities were such that I doubt any government would follow the course they suggest. My concern though is that the Times calls them an 'organisation representing British taxpayers'. I think this should be 'organisation that purports to represent British taxpayers' at the least, unless they have a huge mass membership I am unaware of.
Labels: economics, finance, monetary policy, Taxation
posted by Matthew @ 9/24/2007 07:23:00 AM
Comments: 4
