Mickey Kaus quips, “We need a Czar Czar, to crack the whip on all the czars. … P.S.: Also a federal czar policy. Right now, czar decisions are made on an ad hoc, case-by-case basis, with no attempt at czar harmonization.” I have to agree that we’ve gone czar crazy.  We’re, in theory anyway, a representative republic [...]

Remember that emergency bailout, wherein the world would come to a complete halt if the government didn’t buy up all the bad loans? Hank Paulson says “Never mind.” Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson says that the $700 billion government rescue program will not be used to purchase troubled assets as originally planned. Paulson says the administration [...]

Barry Eichengreen notes that the globalization and diversity of the current economy makes it much less amenable to easy government fixing than its Great Depression counterpart. On the other hand, we’re simply not going to see anything close to the economic devastation we saw during that era: [W]e are not going to see 25% unemployment [...]

After following the rapidly developing news of the financial crisis and the efforts of the Fed and other U.S. agencies to prevent the onset of Great Depression Part Deux, I still honestly don’t know what to think.  My inclination, however, remains skeptical.   Jim Henley‘s had the best line on this so far: “Wouldn’t it save [...]