
 |
|
May 13, 2013
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
|
| |
Jewish World Review
Feb. 10, 2009
/ 16 Shevat 5769
How stimulus prolongs pain
By
Dick Morris & Eileen Mc Gann
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
FROM Nouriel Roubini, the economist who most closely predicted the current mess, comes a warning couched in economic jargon that needs to be deciphered and publicized.
In a column on Forbes.com, Roubini warns that the United States, in its response to the economic crisis, may be following in the disastrous footsteps of Japan - whose sluggish and overly lenient response to a financial crisis led to a decade of economic misery.
In economic jargon, Roubini warns: The "market-friendly, case-by-case approach to the necessary debt reduction of insolvent private non-financial agents - corporate for Japan, households for the US - will be too slow." He calls for an "across-the-board debt reduction" - lest we be condemned to a "systemic debt overhang."
In English, this means that by helping people to stay in homes they can't afford, buy cars beyond their means, pay for college through loans - in short, to acquire goods and services on credit they can't sustain -we are doing them no favors. Instead, we're assuring that debt will "overhang" their lives like a vulture sitting on a branch, inhibiting their buying habits and inhabiting their nightmares.
But if we force an "across-the-board debt reduction" that makes them move out of their overpriced homes, trade in their luxury cars, transfer to state colleges - and, if necessary, escape from under their credit-card debt via bankruptcy, we can eliminate the "overhang" and let them and our nation get on with their lives.
Roubini realizes that this approach is "not politically feasible, at this point, in the US."
But it must become feasible.
Remember, it was kindness that got us into this mess in the first place. It was the willingness of Fannie Mae to buy up mortgages that could never be repaid and the availability of low-interest student, car and home-equity loans that encouraged people to live beyond their means and thus spread this miasma of bad debt over our nation's economy.
And let us also remember how Japan's and Europe's soft-love economic policies served them so ill in the last 30 years.
In Japan, banks that should've failed were allowed to live on. Employees who should have been laid off got lifetime-employment guarantees. Companies that should've gone under were propped up.
But Japan's deficit spending didn't work - all its economic stimulus fell flat. As economist Barry Elias notes, Japan raised its "gross government debt as a percentage of GDP" from 45 percent in 1989 to 170 percent today" with no real effect.
Companies in both Western Europe and the United States faced the opportunity to raise productivity through the new information technologies that became available in the 1990s. In the US, firms were free to fire workers who became redundant as a result of the new computer systems. In Europe, they couldn't. As a result, the US grew rapidly in the last 20 years while Europe stagnated.
The lessons from all of this evidence is that by helping households stay in their homes, cars, colleges and lifestyles through bailouts or stimulus spending, we're killing them with love and consigning the United States to live in the permanent shadow of a debt overhang that will inhibit consumer spending, corporate expansion and economic growth.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Dick Morris is author, most recently, of "Fleeced: How Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, Media Mockery of Terrorist Threats, Liberals Who Want to Kill Talk Radio, the Do-Nothing Congress, Companies ... Are Scamming Us ... and What to Do About It". (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.) Comment by clicking here.
Dick Morris Archives
© 2009, Dick Morris
| |

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Greg Schwem
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Lenore Skenazy
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
Matt Davies
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Jack Ohman
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Dan Wasserman

Tech Q&A
Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|