New Analysis piece up at Fox News: Analysis: Economists Raise Concerns About Bailout Plan

The new analysis piece starts off this way:

While some politicians were reconsidering their opposition to the bailout this week, there is one group that still expresses a lot of concerns with the legislation: economists.


Interviews conducted with a dozen prominent academic economists, Obama supporters as well as McCain supporters, found little support for the bailout bill. Indeed, even the one economist who supported the proposal passed by the Senate Wednesday night had serious reservations.


Jonathan Berk, an award-winning finance professor at Stanford University and a strong opponent of the bailout plan, expressed the concerns of many: “I have never been so frustrated, I have never wanted to speak out publicly before on these political issues, but politicians don’t know what they are doing, they know nothing about these issues.”


The economists did not all emphasize the same reasons for the current financial crunch and they all did not agree how serious the problem is. But there are a number of similarities that can be seen in all their answers.


There is little agreement on how serious the current problems are. Take the statements from three of the economists. John Cochrane, a professor at the University of Chicago Business School, worried that the solution was out of all proportion to the problem.


The legislation is like this: some boats are sinking, so rather than bailing those boats out, you blow up the dam and drain the whole lake.

. . . .



Piece is at the top of the page on Fox News.


David Friedman has comments on the issues in my piece here and here.

Related Posts

New Analysis piece up at Fox News: Analysis: Economists Raise Concerns About Bailout Plan
4/ 5
Oleh