Sheldon Richman on Central Planning at the Federal Reserve

The Federal Reserve has recently moved into a new activity under cover of addressing the financial crisis and recession: central planner of the allocation of credit. But as Sheldon Richman observes, just as central planning of the economy can't serve the general interest because the planner necessarily lacks the required information, so it is with the central planning of the allocation of credit. Ben Bernanke simply cannot know better than the collective intelligence of the market which firms should get capital and which shouldn't.