My co-author Scott Beaulier shares a funny but informative dialogue with his lawyer
here. Excerpt:
LAWYER: So you're an economist at Mercer?
ME: Yep.
LAWYER: What do you think of this crisis?
ME: Well, I'm really concerned about the long-run effects it
will have. I expect much higher taxes and much higher inflation
because of our actions today.
LAWYER (cutting me off): Inflation? Inflation? That's the
least of my concerns. Let me tell you what I think...I think we're in
a Japan era rut. We're going to go sideways for a long time. I think
that if we hadn't acted back in September and October, we were hours
away from financial Armageddon. I just don't understand how people can
continue to argue against regulation after all we've been through. It
was three strokes of the pen to remove regulation that got us into
this mess. I think the most asinine position to hold is the Rick
Santelli one of "don't bail out the losers." You're not one of the
Mercer economists who wrote that article in the paper, are you?
ME: I am, and I actually find myself in agreement with Santelli.
As Homer says, "It's funny because it's true."
That's amusing. (And well transcribed -- I can hear it going down exactly like that.)
At the end of Scott's piece, he says to himself, "It's no crime to be ignorant of economics." But the lawyer's views didn't seem to be all that different from Richard Posner's in his new book, and Posner certainly isn't ignorant of economics (is he?).
Funny thing is both the lawyer and Scott are right. Lawyer, "we're in a rut and going sideways for a long time" -- absolutely true. Scott, "don't bail out the losers" -- or you slideways for a long time.
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This just in:
Lawyer believes in regulation!