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Hi Tom, Yes, quite interesting, and thanks for the pointer but, in my view the commentary about it is even more interesting, such as:

Walter Palmer
Researcher, Writer, Speaker: sustainable alternative fuels and climate; consultant

Danielle DiMartino Booth, I didn't read the whole article; I'm not a finance nerd. But the evident opening assumptions make a non-expert wonder: Most of us assume that national reserve banks should be busy at providing as much fiscal and monetary stability as possible -- within the bounds of the tools available. But the reserve banks don't control the private banking industry and they don't set banking regulation policy. The Fed may have reacted well, or not so well to the 2008 crisis--great discussion; go ahead and have it--but the Fed did not create or control a US banking industry that took itself, of its own delusional and pathologically greedy accord deep into the many and varied ways of selling unsecured credit as 'investment.' Look to the captain(s) of the ship (bank boards and executives) and the people who control their license (here's that word:) government, in order to prevent a recurrence. But look at what is happening now: with the new administration in power, the banks are right back at it; lobbying the government to rip all of the controls off of Wall Street. Steve Denning wrote a piece for Forbes two years ago pointing out how pathetically the (very necessary) financial services sector serves the larger economy: it is yanking literally hundreds of billions of dollars out of GDP and yet wants MORE. You can beat up on the stodgy, and (intellectually) conservative ways of a bureaucratic cornerstone; and you can suggest that academics' lack of 'real business' experience rendered them shortsighted, but let me ask this: As between the stuffy academics and economic theorists on one side, and multi-million-salaried commercial bankers on the other, who was actually looking farthest and most responsibly at the potential pitfalls of US banking practice in the period leading up to the 2008 tummy upset?

What the Fed did or didn't do is, at least partially, a result of the hermetic environment that too often accompanies a single way of thinking that is all too common in academia, business, and government today.

When Obama was running for office I commented to friends that we were not all that likely to see any significant change because he was all too friendly and close to the Milton Friedman School of Economics and their thinking. I was laughed at but I think history has shown that, except for Dodd-Frank and the ACA, not all that much changed while the world has been changing around us.

If one looks at the actions around the world were massive failures that were based on Milton Friedman's economic thinking, surely one must question the validity of those ideas, and yet they are still thought of as "valid."

And, if you look at Dodd-Frank, it is a much weaker version of what was created in response to the Great Depression, Glass-Steagall, that worked reasonably well for over 50 years.

Looking at the ACA, one can see it is overly complex and still does not achieve what almost all other developed countries have, medical care for all at about 1/3 less, or more, in cost than we pay per capita but we rate at the bottom of the list, #17 out of 17 developed countries for quality of medical care.

Alas, this kind of thinking, that we know best how to achieve any goal as we are the biggest and smartest, is so common that I even see it in the newspapers on an almost daily basis. The one for today is about education. Stephan Woolpert, a professor of politics at St. Mary's College here in California, says, in an editorial commentary, in an editorial commentary, that it is important to close the educational divide by "Improve the quality of our schools. American high school students rate as middling at best in reading, math and science skills. Homework should be emphasized more, and sports less."

If he is correct, how did Finland go from near last place is educational quality in the early Sixties to first or second place in the world today and yet only give out less than 20 minutes of homework a day?

To me, it is this inability to look around us for new ideas from others outside our own circle that is the key problem that faces America today.

Best,

Allen