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Saturday, September 20, 2008

Yeah, That'll Happen -- UPDATED

Dean Baker proposes "progressive principles" that should drive the response to the current financial crisis. Here's his wishlist. One can quibble about this or that principle, but it is more or less as sensible as one could manage given the actual stakeholders in play on the ground, and anyway it is far more fun simply to contemplate the distance between Baker's recommendations and the details of the actual proposal as they are leaking out at last today from the great adult diaper of the Village's Very Serious Committee to Save the World. Very confidence inspiring! A New Golden Age is upon us!

UPDATE! And this right after I had already scared myself silly with all the shock and awe analogy stuff in my most recent post...

Dean Baker has now commented on the actual bailout proposal in the comments section that followed his own recommendations. Read it and weep. Or sharpen your plow into a sword or whatever it is we are supposed to do on such occasions:
Folks,

the bailout proposal that Paulson has put forward is a blank check. It would outrageous if Congress approved it in its current form. This is the domestic equivalent of the Iraq war authorization.

The threat of financial collapse is analogous to the weapons of mass destruction. The markets will wait. Congress can give a proposal with real conditions and then it will be Bush's call if he wants to be responsible for collapsing the U.S. economy.

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