"The forces of the market are just that: They are forces; they are like the wind and the tides; they are things that if you want to try to ignore them, you ignore them at your peril, and ... if you find a way of ordering your life that is compatible with these forces, indeed which harnesses these forces to the benefit of your society, that's the way to go." -- Arnold Harberger, University of Chicago Economist
Monday, August 24, 2009
Policy Makers Seek to Learn From 1937's Stalled Comeback - WSJ.com
"The Great Depression was W-shaped. The stock-market collapse led to a steep economic decline. But by 1933, the economy had rebounded. Then a series of monetary and fiscal blunders drove the country back into a deep recession at the end of 1937.
That episode is at the heart of the debate over how quickly the government and the U.S. Federal Reserve should unwind the emergency measures they have taken to fend off a Depression-like contraction."