Economist Miron: Bail on the Bailout
Via Drudge comes this CNN.com column by economist Jeffrey Miron. After detailing the government's role in fueling the subprime mortgage crisis, which is at the heart of the current "crisis," he concludes:
So what should the government do? Eliminate those policies that generated the current mess. This means, at a general level, abandoning the goal of home ownership independent of ability to pay. This means, in particular, getting rid of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, along with policies like the Community Reinvestment Act that pressure banks into subprime lending.
The right view of the financial mess is that an enormous fraction of subprime lending should never have occurred in the first place. Someone has to pay for that. That someone should not be, and does not need to be, the U.S. taxpayer.
Miron notes that, among other things, Wall Street is now engaging in "strategic behavior" in anticipation of a bailout. He argues that the current credit freeze, such as it is, is largely a function of firms waiting to see what's coming out of Washington. The whole piece is well worth reading.
Miron participated in our recent forum, "The Great Bailout Brouhaha." His contribution:
Jeffrey A. Miron
1. How bad is the current market situation?
The current situation is serious, but not so much because the economic conditions are especially bad. The situation is serious because policymakers seem poised to undertake an enormous intervention that will have huge adverse effects and may well exacerbate the very kind of problem the intervention is meant to fix.2. How bad are the current proposed bailout plans?
See #1. The bailout is a terrible idea. It transfers a huge amount of wealth to people who do not deserve it. It will generate enormous incentives for creative bookkeeping as the investment houses and banks try to rid themselves of any assets they do not want. The bailout fails to eliminate the crucial policies that contributed to and caused the current situation, such as the Community Reinvestment Act, the creation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and so on. Last but hardly least, the bailout sets a terrible precedent: If you take huge risks and become too big to fail, the government will bail you out.3. What's the one thing we should be doing that we're not?
The only things we should be doing are eliminating the underlying policy causes of the current situation; see #2.Jeffrey A. Miron is senior lecturer and director of undergraduate studies in the Department of Economics at Harvard University.
