Very nice analysis of the long-term development of this whole affair by John Steele Gordon, going back to the early 1800's. I found it at Instapundit.

Of course the fix isn't going to work. The resue wasn't intended to actually resolve the problems that caused the implosion, but rather to re-enable the game to continue playing.

The question I've been waiting to see asked in big letters on the front page is---Why are we paying attention to these "experts" any more?

All the way along, big-time finance people, big-time academics, big-time politicians, and big-time big shots of every conceivable stripe have been running the big money, big government, big financial management operation.

And it has crashed, repeatedly, getting more and more costly each time.

Good god almighty, I am tired of big shots of every possible kind, and very tired of paying for their endless mistakes.

Throw the rascals out!

"Of course the fix isn't going to work. The resue wasn't intended to actually resolve the problems that caused the implosion, but rather to re-enable the game to continue playing."

Your statement, along with Mr. Micklethwait's reference to a craps table, sums up the situation nicely.

Investment is a gamble. There will be losses. Bubbles don't grow forever, and it's pointless to try to legislate their continued growth.

I think Daniel Hannan might be trying for your quote of the day spot.

...whatever happens, the EU, the UN and the other international bureaucracies will expand their budgets, comfortable posts will be found for retired politicians, and Youth Solidarity Funds will disburse their largesse. That is what governments mean when they talk of "protecting front-line services".

On the world government stuff:

Stig (the Nobel Price winning "economist") was demanding world regulations and world subsidies (world government in all but name) in this week's "Time" magazine.

And, no doubt, Paul Krugman (another Nobel Price winning "economist" without even a basic knowledge of economics) agrees with him.

So let us hear an end to claims that people who fear that key establishment types are working for world tyranny - are "paranoid people on the look out for black helecopters".

We may be paranoid people on the look out for black (or dark blue) helecopters - but we are also correct, as the comming "international conferences" (with their collectivist agenda) will show.

Nor did these plans come from nowhere, they have been around for many years before the present financial crises.

Still back to the bailout:

Charles Payne of the Fox Business Network - a supporter of the bailout.

"And the good thing about this is the ratio - for every Dollar the government gives the banks, they will lend out ten".

Some people will say "good", and some people will say "bad".

This is the difference beteen the Chicago School and the Austrian School.

To us wicked "hard money" types all loans must be 100% from real savings, and once money is lent out neither the depositor or the banker has the money any more - till when and IF the money is paid back.

Let us (for the sake of arugment) say that we are WRONG - that credit bubble castles-in-the-air are fine (we, or at least the elite, can live happily in them).

If so then there would no need for a "Bank of England" or a "Federal Reserve" system, with their endless bailouts (on no this is not the first - Alan Greenspan did this sort of thing on a smaller scale many times, and so did others).

Some supporters of what they call "modern banking" take exactly this view - but very few.

Almost all take the Tim Congdon view of supporting bailouts (in one form or another).

In short these "free market" people are free market in the same way that I am camel.

It is all a con - and when the "confidence" game fails (as it always does in the end), the resulting bust gives the collectivists their chance.

And now it is not just national collectivism - the establishment types (who have so long controlled the universities and so much else) see their chance for world collectivism.

This is the door that, unintentionally, the Chicago School has opened.

As Richard Weaver used to say "ideas have consequences".

"By the way" if people want to read a book on money and banking they could do worse than de Soto's (the Spanish de Soto, not the Peruvian) big book.

"Money, Bank Credit and Economic Cycles".

Paul, what is the difference between Chicago and Austrian school in this context?