FUCK THE POLICE
911 EVERY DAY
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/whats-our-gold-standard/
What’s our gold standard?
I’ve just reread Eichengreen and Temin, The Gold Standard and the Great Depression, which does a great job of showing how the “gold mentality” — what they call mentalite, with an accent — paralyzed policymakers. (The longer-form version, with more personal color, is Liaquat Ahamad’s Lords of Finance.)
What E&T show is that circa 1930 key decision-makers had spent so many years equating adherence to gold not just with prosperity, but with morality, decency, civilization itself, that they couldn’t even contemplate breaking with that orthodoxy — even in the face of total catastrophe.
I think we’re more flexible now. But my sense is that the mystique of finance is playing a somewhat similar role.
More on this when I’m not waiting for a delayed plan at O’Hare.
What’s our gold standard?
I’ve just reread Eichengreen and Temin, The Gold Standard and the Great Depression, which does a great job of showing how the “gold mentality” — what they call mentalite, with an accent — paralyzed policymakers. (The longer-form version, with more personal color, is Liaquat Ahamad’s Lords of Finance.)
What E&T show is that circa 1930 key decision-makers had spent so many years equating adherence to gold not just with prosperity, but with morality, decency, civilization itself, that they couldn’t even contemplate breaking with that orthodoxy — even in the face of total catastrophe.
I think we’re more flexible now. But my sense is that the mystique of finance is playing a somewhat similar role.
More on this when I’m not waiting for a delayed plan at O’Hare.