> But if you concede from the outset that
> we're going to bail out the banks - without
> even making a fuss about whether the
> shareholders get completely wiped out
Doug Henwood wrote:
> What's the alternative? Do a Japan, dither
> for years, and have a shitty economy for
> 15 years?
There isn't a strict binary here, though. Can't the system be propped back up, the fuss ignored, and, apart from some new Fed support for non-depository institutions and some thin, technocratic new regs, this whole episode be forgotten? This crisis, and the next crisis, could then be little more than data points for the C. Wright Mill quote you've used before:
"[A]mong the mass distractions this feeling soon passes harmlessly away. For the American distrust of the high and mighty is a distrust without doctrine and without political focus; it is a distrust felt by the mass public as a series of more or less cynically expected disclosures."
Seth is well-focused here. Populist fervor isn't as likely to consign us to Japan's fate as American politics will commit us to a replay of this bust. So, why not let a thousand pitchforks rise?
Seth also noted the crucial difference between the Nordic case and ours, but just how like Japan then is the US now? Political economy-wise, I mean.
Shane