Big Al? On 4/7/08, raghu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I don't know about blameless but this guy really is shameless.. > > http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/81c05200-03f2-11dd-b28b-000077b07658.html > -------------------------------------snip > Martin Wolf argues in the FT that central banks "can surely lean > against the wind" even if they cannot eliminate bubbles. I know of no > instance in which such a policy has been successful. For reasons I > have outlined elsewhere (American Economic Association, January 2004), > I doubt that it is possible. If it turns out to be feasible, I would > become a strong supporter of "leaning against the wind". > > As far as US monetary policy being (in Mr Wolf's words) "dangerously > asymmetrical", I point out that over the past half-century the US > economy has been in recession only one-seventh of the time. Yet the > unemployment rate exhibits no trend. Hence the average rate of rise of > unemployment has been far greater than its average pace of decline. > Monetary policy in response has been more active during recessions > than during periods of expansion, but scarcely "dangerous". > > Much of the commentary critical of my FT article (Comment, March 17) > is directed less at its substance and more, as Mr Wolf describes it, > at "the ideology I display". Ideology defines that set of ideas that > we each believe explains how the world works and how we need to act to > achieve our goals. Some of our views of causative forces are rational, > some otherwise. Much of what we confront in reality is uncertain, some > of it frighteningly so. Yet people have no choice but to make > judgments on the nature of the tenuous ties of causation or they are > immobilised. > > I do have an ideology. So does each member of the forum. I trust our > views are subject to the same standards of evidence that apply to all > rational discourse. My view of how the efficiency of global capitalism > has evolved over the decades as new evidence has appeared contradicts > some earlier judgments and confirms others. I have been surprised by > the fierceness of investors in retrenching from risk since August. My > view of the range of dispersion of outcomes has been shaken but not my > judgment that free competitive markets are the unrivalled way to > organise economies. We have tried regulation ranging from heavy to > central planning. None meaningfully worked. Do we wish to retest the > evidence? > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l >
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