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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: FJB who wrote (293998)	2/26/2009 3:03:58 AM
From: KLP	3 Recommendations Respond to of 793955

Good for him!!! Edward Johnson Slams FDR,‘New Deal II’ Blames feds for crisis, derides U.S. spending By Jay Fitzgerald \| Wednesday, February 25, 2009 \| bostonherald.com \| Business & Markets multimedia.heraldinteractive.com Fidelity’s Edward “Ned” Johnson jumped into the controversial debate over President Obama’s “New Deal II” and what Johnson called government “make-work projects.” Without naming names, Johnson praised the administration’s effort to make economic recovery its top priority, saying it was “admirable.” But Johnson, sounding like he’s never been a big fan of the original New Dealers from the 1930s, warned of too much government involvement in the economy and indicated Fidelity is beefing up its government-affairs unit to fend off possibly burdensome new regulations. “We can only hope that the government’s cure doesn’t further sicken the patient,” Johnson wrote in his annual update on Fidelity’s performance over the past year. “During the ’30s, Congress - with guidance from the president and the same kind of good intentions - shifted the country’s cash flow away from productive businesses to government make-work projects, which most likely prolonged the Great Depression,” wrote Johnson, arguably Boston’s most powerful business executive. As for the financial-system crisis, Johnson also took a somewhat anti-government conservative view toward its causes, saying “this climate was caused by many well-intentioned policies - stimulated by individuals at high levels in government and sanctioned by regulatory structures.” Those policies helped make “money ridiculously easy to obtain and business people eager to comply with the policies,” Johnson wrote. Not surprisingly, others’ views on Johnson’s views depended on their interpretation of economic history. Daniel Mitchell, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute, said Johnson’s remarks were on the “right path,” though he said they might be “kind of risky” if they anger government policymakers. Mitchell compared former President George Bush to Herbert Hoover and Obama to Franklin D. Roosevelt, the two presidents in office at the beginning and end of the Great Depression. Both failed to get the nation’s economy working, he said. But William Cheney, chief economist at Boston’s John Hancock Financial, said he “very much” disagreed with Johnson’s version of FDR’s New Deal policies. Roosevelt’s initial policies did boost the economy, which faltered after FDR tried to rein in government spending, Cheney said. Article URL: bostonherald.com