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Bob Higgs ruminates on a recent essay by Angelo M. Codevilla [2].
City Journal‘s Nicole Gelinas wrote this remarkably powerful essay [3]. Here’s a slice:
Over the past year, hundreds of authors have published books on the crisis. What becomes clear—often despite the authors’ own intentions—after reading ten of the most significant of these works is that the mainstream narrative is wrong. Over the two decades leading up to 2008, financial markets were anything but free. The nuts-and-bolts government infrastructure that free markets require to thrive—healthy fear of failure, respect for the rule of law, and fair rules for everyone—was crumbling. The crisis books make clear, too, that Washington’s extraordinary rescues of Wall Street have eroded much of what’s left of free-market infrastructure in finance. Worse, Congress’s efforts to reform the industry will do yet more damage. The next time the financial world implodes, it will hurt the economy even more severely.
The United States remains the world’s largest exporter, with Germany second and China third [4]. (HT Bridgett Wagner)
Mario Rizzo celebrates the paperback release of Tyler Cowen’s book [7]Risk and Business Cycles: New and Old Austrian Perspectives [7].
Finally, Steve Landsburg weighs in again against Paul Krugman [9].