
 |
|
May 20, 2013
Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star
The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting
May 13, 2013
Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation
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
Sept. 29, 2008
/ 29 Elul 5768
Fasten your seat belts
By
Paul Greenberg
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
What a wild ride it's been on the world's financial markets. It's as if the hurricane that had just blown away Galveston, Texas, reversed course, rushed back out to sea, and on the way took care to deposit every house, building, street and road it had washed away back in the same place and in much the same shape.
But if you looked closely, you'd see crews of workmen trying to shore up one structure after another, and the city planners proposing to build a whole new system of breakwaters to save the whole island.
You can measure the high and low tides of the markets last week by looking at the gyrations of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The market may have ended almost where it started, but in the meantime it had swung a thousand points as investors reacted to every sign of panic on Wall Street and every whisper of hope from Washington.
The team of Henry Paulson at Treasury and Ben Bernanke at the Federal Reserve have been rushing around plugging holes in the dikes as they've developed, trying different strategies for different breaches. They'd rescued both those oversized public-private disasters, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but it wasn't enough to calm the crisis in the housing market. They'd taken the assets of Bear Stearns and sold them off. They decided to let Lehman Brothers go under. But the waters kept rising. AIG was next to be threatened and if it went under, much of the world's economy would go with it. So they lent it enough money to keep it afloat and kept on bailing.
Toward the end of the week, the ad hoc firm of Paulson and Bernanke unveiled the biggest rescue operation since the New Deal, proposing to buy hundreds of billions in securities that couldn't be traded now because the entire market was seizing up. It was the biggest, most daring decision of all to use the full faith and credit of the U.S. government, that is, We the People, to get credit flowing again.
One could question the wisdom of each decision these two made along the way. Are they dedicated and innovative public servants, or just the financial version of Laurel and Hardy?
But there's little question their action may give markets hope if Congress will only cooperate or even improve on their proposal. Imagine the fall-out if they hadn't acted. They bought some time and confidence, and what else does credit consist of?
The one thing Paulson and Bernanke have not done is dawdle. Or make small plans. Ben Bernanke, who made his academic reputation studying the causes of the Great Depression, was not about to repeat the mistakes of the Fed in the 1920s, and Henry Paulson wasn't going to follow the lead of the Hoover Administration and make only small, tardy reforms. Both have responded to a major crisis with major moves.
The dynamic duo may be faulted on the result of each individual remedy they adopted to stem the panic, but not on the energy with which they've moved. Whatever criticisms can be made of their management, this is scarcely proving a do-nothing administration. Now if it can just get this do-nothing Congress off its earmarks.
Remember Paul Volcker? He was the head of the Federal Reserve during the Reagan administration who defied conventional wisdom, rode out a recession, and began the long-lasting economic comeback of the 1980s. For some time he's been urging a new version of the Resolution Trust Corporation, the outfit that stepped in to stem the savings-and-loan collapse of the 1980s.
The RTC took over the assets of failing savings-and-loans, and held them till they could be sold at a more realistic price. Lest we forget, there are real assets houses and buildings under all that now over-valued paper the market won't touch now.
There is a much earlier precedent: the Home Owners Loan Corporation of the 1930s, one of the first of the New Deal agencies. It wasn't clear that the experiment would work (it did), but Franklin Roosevelt was determined to try one new tack after another to get a stalled economy moving again. He was not going to just drift, complacent in the face of mounting disaster.
In the meantime, the New Deal would keep hope (and therefore credit) alive. FDR realized that he was presiding over a country rich in capital, both human and material, despite all those who proposed to ride out the storm, even at the cost of letting everything go under.
FDR was not afraid to change course from day to day. Till something worked. He tried bold experimentation in the face of emergency. So should we. Each generation, it seems, has a rendezvous with destiny.
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 Paul Greenberg, editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, has won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. Send your comments by clicking here.
Paul Greenberg Archives
© 2006 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
|
|

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
|