'John Bennett' wrote this:
You bet. Ron Paul is a brill guy ... At the risk of upsetting the fans of keynes...
The solution to this banking and economic debt mess is to allow the free markets to liquidate it in its own way. If that means some corps and banks go under, so be it. Like Woolies they were probably on the brink anyway. Only in the most serious of cases should govt step in. Free markets are remarkably good at dealing with problems like this and should be left alone to do their work, whilst minimising the worst effects on real people.
Problem is that millions of people look to govt to "do something", so the pols look around for "something to do". The only known solution is to peddle keynesian policies, so that's what they do. Brown also has an agenda to increase state power over the economy.
We now have the US Fed and BoE pouring billions into the economy, but with no apparent improvement so far. Any improvement which does happen will be claimed as a vindication of their policies.
Truth is that the banks will start lending again when there's a profit to be made and the risks are manageable. For that to happen, the credit bubble has to be deflated but it hasn't fully happened yet.