Guns and butter
Please see my Futile Surges and Bailouts. ...and also this: Business Times - 21 Mar 2008 When taxpayers end up holding the baby Greater oversight and transparency of financial industry needed to regain market trust By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT FOR a while, officials, lawmakers and pundits in Washington were debating whether the American economy was - or soon would be - in a recession. The key historical analogy applied in their discussions was the mild recession in late 1990, during the presidency of George Bush the elder that lasted for only six months. The message then was that the economy was facing a cyclical downturn that could be managed through appropriate monetary and fiscal policies. So it is intriguing - or scary, some would argue - when the same officials, lawmakers and pundits are now starting to refer more frequently in recent days to the Great Depression of the 1930s and to the various 'New Deal' programmes initiated by then president Franklin Delano Roo...