captmanning

The Recovery Was Too Expensive

My knowledge of economics is not at your level. I do know that growth is not the same as development. The original article with many charts explains in "dollar value" we are not getting our money's worth and the debt is too high. I'm not sure the conclusions, which I generally understand and agree with, follow from the discussion in terms of pure dollar. Differentiated and printed dollars or those on the books, I mean.

But what would the cost have been in those same dollars if we had done nothing? None of us can know, and cannot even estimate because our nation's treasure is impossible to value. Potential value of the labor of an educated work force, research and development capacity of our labs and higher education institutions, mineral extraction capacity are intangibles but certainly have some value.

It seems to me the conclusions talked more about the possibilities of "development" of our overall economy from the destructive aspect of capitalism evolving in favor of simply increasing by 1 or 2% what we have done before that didn't work.

This may be more philosophy or history, but the USA has faced and dealt with crisis in pragmatic terms. It has usually involved someone or some group doing "something" instead of doing nothing. Bernanke can point to the same improving indicators now that people used before to predict doom.

"we are really getting only limited value from
> this bailout" but this is really an impossible statement; isn't it?
> How do you know what might have happened if the fed's actions hadn't
> been taken?
>
> In general, I'm in agreement with you. But I get a little annoyed
> on Seeking Alpha with all the "ditto heads" and permabears and really,
> perhaps Bernanke deserves some real kudos. Who knows, my point is
> we cannot.
>
> We are but fallible humans (actually meaning-making animals) seeking
> to do the best we can for ourselves in our social contracts. I think
> it's better to live in gratefulness for what has been done than perenial
> cynicism.