"The same overinvestment in high tech that led to the stock market bust led to a lot of bankruptcies, with their ripple effects."
>>> Yep (similiar to the S&L bust in the eighties... except it wasn't government money funding the tech bubble, or insuring it's participants - it was the markets.)
>>> I'll argue that significant wrongful government actions or inactions (Congress rejecting accounting reform and options reform back in the early nineties, Fed over-stimulation of liquidity during the Y2K scare, and before, etc.) likely made a small bubble inflate into a giant one... but it wasn't government SPENDING that made the bubble. And, of course, bubbles are common in free markets historically.
"Of course, high tech is the wave of the future, but that does not mean that the way money was being thrown at unproven start- ups was rational."
>>> Yep, but once again, that was market participants... not the government.
"Fiscally prudent Republicans are addressing current issues, like funding the war of terror and stimulating the economy."
>>> Poorly, I'd say, especially on the later.
>>> A projected four trillion dollar addition to the national debt over the next decade... and no realistic glide path to a balanced budget... added to the EXTREMELY LOW current stimulative effect of the backend-loaded tax code changes - as admitted by most economists and even the WH - vs. the greater stimulative effect other tax cuts COULD have achieved... all argue that these people - whatever they are - are not 'fiscally prudent'. |
