Lemmingville

The Chicken Little clamor in relation to the credit crunch is beyond annoying. So many commentators, including many of those who proclaim themselves free-market supporters, have joined the Greek chorus of doomsayers. Where is their skepticism? The usual suspects have said that if the financial markets are not bailed out by federal taxpayers (which, btw, only comprise about 60% of the adult population), the nation's economy will come crashing down around our ears, 21st-century Hoovervilles will spring up across the landscape and there will be no end to our woes. But about 200 economists from universities all across the United States, and from various schools of thought, signed a letter opposing the bailout. I guess they know less than the talking heads on radio and television. One of the economists' reasons for opposing the so-called "rescue" is particularly insightful: "If the plan is enacted, its effects will be with us for a generation. For all their recent troubles, America's dynamic and innovative private capital markets have brought the nation unparalleled prosperity. Fundamentally weakening those markets in order to calm short-run disruptions is desperately short-sighted."

The idea that "something must be done" is the kind of thinking that "informed" FDR's administrations, and while the leftist educational theocracy makes FDR a saint, the simple fact is that his interventionist policies only lengthened the Great Depression.