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A Failure of Explanation
The real failure yesterday came about, I believe, because the necessity for this bailout has not been clearly explained to Americans.
$700 billion is a staggering number to ask Americans to pay. Most of us don't understand why not paying it could be "catastrophic," as the politicians are saying. We've learned to distrust the rhetoric of politicians.
So, faced with this number and with mounting worries about our personal finances, a huge number of Americans called their politicians and asked them to vote "no" on this measure.
If the need for it had been explained clearly, the results might have been different.
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Comments (1)
The bailout addresses the crisis of confidence, but only temporarily. It doesn't address overleveraging; it adds to the problem by artificially propping up prices for junk. It doesn't necessarily address the recent credit freezes, and has the potential to make them worse by increasing inflation (thus decreasing the relative amount of money that can be earned by lending money to other banks). Unless there's something I'm not seeing?
September 30, 2008 12:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
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