New Book Alert: Johan Norberg on the Mortgage Crisis
If you have some concern about where the many government bailouts and the massive debt they have created is leading us, these two posts by Stacy McCain should be right up your alley. Even if you’re not terribly concerned, I recommend them to you.
Stacy interviewed Johan Norberg, who has written a brand-new book about how the mortgagte crisis developed and where he thinks it is leading us. His glimpse of the future is not especially pretty.
Asked how the United States can get out of its current problems like high unemployment and rapidly growing federal debt, Norberg answered, “I’m not sure we do” get out of it.
“I’m afraid we’re going to live with the consequences for a long time,” he said. “The bailouts . . . the debts — we won’t be able to pay them back. We’re going to pay for it for a long time. And it’s not just what it costs, it’s what we’re buying.”
Norberg said the TARP bailout would have the perverse effect of encouraging lenders and other financial institutions to engage in the same kinds of risky behaviors that led to last year’s meltdown.
I’ve written before about how the TARP program quickly mutated from a way of buying and holding trash financial assets until they were not quite so trashy into a cash giveaway to banks, car companies, and anyone else Democrats felt needed a few bucks. I’d be very interested in Norberg’s take on that situation.
(via memeorandum)
Other Posts of Interest:
- If This Were Vegas, There’d Be A Lot of Broken Kneecaps
- What the Heck, It’s Only A Few Billion Dollars, Right?
- Yeah, We’re Idiots for Listening to Them
Category: Cool Columnists and Wicked Writers, The Economy and Your Money
