Despite the billions and the debt, the depression was back. And it was not a new depression. It was the old one, which had not been driven away but merely hidden behind a curtain of 15 billion dollars of new government debt.
This article originally ran on Tuesday, February 17, 2009. It was near the low of the last stock-market cycle.
Recorded at Mises University 2011. Includes an introduction by Mark Thornton.
No, the bill can't be paid and won't be paid. That much should be obvious. But denying the obvious is a mental trait built into the structure of the system. The economic crisis of 2008 was really just the realization that the consumer-debt load at the time was unsustainable.
Here we see the huge gulf between Austrian and Keynesian analysis.
Ron Paul recently made (another) splash among economic pundits with his suggestion that the Treasury simply cancel the $1.6 trillion in its debt.
This great company keeps reinventing itself to serve the public: real people, not abstractions, writes Jeffrey A. Tucker.
While you may see those who walk away from underwater mortgages as morally wrong for breaking their mortgage vows, others see those who stay for the financial beating as stupid. No matter. As prices continue to fall, millions more will make a run for it.
