Comments for The Washington Post and National Public Radio Think that Central Banks Performed Perfectly in the Great Depression at http://www.cepr.net , comment 1 to 5 out of 5 comments http://www.cepr.net Sat, 18 May 2013 23:43:32 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-washington-post-and-national-public-radio-think-that-central-banks-performed-perfectly-in-the-great-depression#comment-1520 And, frankenduf, if government were no more than a business, Jay may have had a point. To the people who believe that "the business of America is business" the proposition that business leaders and bankers should rule appears self evident. But government is also, or primarily, about legislating how we interact once we step out of our front doors onto the sidewalk--public people with private rights and social obligations interacting in the public space. And, as Plato observed, when a person thinks that because they are good at carpentry or banking they are therefore good at governance or the administration of justice, they are guilty of a cardinal intellectual error. Of course, if a person imagines that they live in a faith-based universe they could care less about making intellectual errors. - diesel Thu, 15 Jul 2010 14:08:11 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-washington-post-and-national-public-radio-think-that-central-banks-performed-perfectly-in-the-great-depression#comment-1518 Dear Milton Friedman, We were wondering if some reporters could conduct a channeling session with you in our next mainstream media seance. It's about the Great Depression and how you explained the central bank caused it by sharply reducing the money supply. Since you left us, a new paradigm has taken over that wants to do the same thing again, so we were hoping you could explain how austerity really works to avoid depressions, instead of causing another one. RIP, The Chicago Crowd-Outers - izzatzo Thu, 15 Jul 2010 07:13:19 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-washington-post-and-national-public-radio-think-that-central-banks-performed-perfectly-in-the-great-depression#comment-1517 indeed skeptonomist- i think it is a general tenet of propaganda that businessmen have a better understanding of the world and therefore are more qualified to govern- one of the staunch proponents of this sham was john jay, who said "the people that own the country ought to govern it" - frankenduf Thu, 15 Jul 2010 07:10:50 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-washington-post-and-national-public-radio-think-that-central-banks-performed-perfectly-in-the-great-depression#comment-1514 Let's face it; central bankers usually make "mistakes". Some are honest mistakes, some are attempts to protect themselves from the consequences of killing what seems to be a boom, and some are actions to protect or benefit their natural colleagues in the banking and financial industries. Also, those who think that monetary policy is the ultimate economic tool or that it should be the first recourse in case of problems have the bad habit of attributing past failures of monetary policy and the Fed to the "mistakes" of previous chairmen rather than the defects and limitations of monetary policy itself. Although the Fed is supposed to be "independent" to protect it from political influence, selection of a chairman and other appointees is a highly political affair, and in practice this independence leads to a lack of accountability, not just in a political sense but in the reactions of the media which tend to glorify the chairman as the paternal leader. Central banks are not institutions which should be entrusted with the economic control of countries - or the world. There is no reason to continue to trust the "wisdom" of the small group of powerful bankers who originated the Fed in 1915. They were not the Founding Fathers. - skeptonomist Thu, 15 Jul 2010 03:22:13 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-washington-post-and-national-public-radio-think-that-central-banks-performed-perfectly-in-the-great-depression#comment-1512 Giving up sovereignty to Central Banks leaves us subjects of the Central Banks and very much poorer as well. - Scott ffolliott Thu, 15 Jul 2010 02:19:48 +0100