Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Where's the government?

Ezra notes that the entire management of the financial crisis has been essentially removed from elected politicians. And before you say, "Good!", consider the extent of the expenditures so far. Literally hundreds of billions of dollars have been committed to keeping Wall Street from going down a black hole. The government is spending money in some ways faster than it does on the Iraq War, but Congress is not appropriating any of it. This won't matter if the game collapses -- the US government will be considered responsible for repaying that debt (and more, probably) or lose it's bulletproof credit rating.

Imagine if the Secretary of Defense, without the direction of either the President or the Congress, declared war on another country.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

In some ways spending money faster than does On the Iraq War? Um by the end of this month the Iraq war will have cost just over 600 billion. The cost to date of supporting the financial markets by the FED, Treasury and Congress is already at 900 billion.

http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSN1733865120080917

Mike said...

Don't forget aw well that a great big chunk of that money is being created out of thin air by the Fed...they are just going to print more and drive up inflation.