Please get fiscal policy out of the way...

I'm going to agree with Mankiw on this one, the current mess is no place for fiscal policy. I don't have high hopes for the current stimulus package.

I would even go one step farther and suggest that the Fed's monetary policy isn't helping much either.

Fed and a new paradigm?

As usual, the Big Picture succinctly puts into words what many of us may be thinking... is it really the Fed's job to be bailing out the markets? I'm hurting as much as the next guy with the markets tumbling, but it strikes me that much of the cause of the current pain is due to too much meddling in the past (excessive policies on both the monetary and fiscal fronts). Therefore, I'd be willing to go through some pain now to ensure smoother, more sustainable growth in the future.

We're had at least two bubbles in less than a decade... tech and housing (and I suppose an emerging market bubble that is biting me in the ass right now). So maybe this is the new paradigm; in search of increasingly more rapid growth, we need to also be prepared for more frequent bubbles and their subsequent bursts.



The Big Picture | Is the Fed a Paper Tiger?