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Politics : GOPwinger Lies/Distortions/Omissions/Perversions of Truth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (138578)	9/25/2008 3:10:12 PM
From: Kevin Rose	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 173976

I think part of the problem is that these guys (led by Greenspan) figured out how to game the system, and then did it. Interest rates and monetary policy can be used - for a period of time - to mask underlying deficiencies in the economy. For almost the entire Bush years, they masked the weakness of the economy - manufacturing and tech job losses overseas, the shift of jobs to the service sector, decreasing wage power of the average worker - with statistics and monetary manipulation. There is a blame game going on between the left and right as to who caused the bubble. Well, we're looking too far downstream - the root cause was low interest rates, which set the stage with free money. It got to the point where people thought they were being stupid not to take advantage. Then, people got even stupider into thinking it would go on forever, and started using their houses as ATMs. Bernanke is part of this mindset - that economic manipulation is a good thing. Instead, it just masks the underlying issues, and let's our politicians off the hook for a myriad of problems. Maybe future economists will look back at this period and learn from the mistakes, just like today's economists learned from the Depression. I agree they're getting better - I can't see 35% unemployment in this country short of a nuclear disaster - but, tell that to the hundreds of thousands - possibly millions - who have lost their life savings.