Opinion Forum

More on Money

November 3rd, 2009

Love him or hate him, this latest by Glenn Beck must be watched. He gives an excellent synopsis of the financial mess we now find ourselves in. In addition, he gives some historical perspective both of the Jimmy Carter/Paul Volcker years of inflation and high interest as well as of how the Germans solved their massive inflation problem of the 1920s.

Nothing is more important to our freedom than stable currency. There are other things as important, but certainly nothing that is more important, and the dollar has been getting raped for decades.

Continue reading to watch the video.

Articles written by Brian Bagent
Tags: currency, Glenn Beck, inflation
Categories: Economics, Politics | Comments (3) | Home

3 Responses to “More on Money”

Tom | November 3rd, 2009 at 3:39 pm

Glenn Beck is usually a bit over-the-top for my taste, but I have to admit that the video is pretty good. He presents a clear explanation of the housing-crash part of the recession.

It’s interesting that most fair economists will say that the causes of the recession were the housing mortgage crisis and the Wall Street collapse, which were to some extent interconnected. Democrats focus on Wall Street, which is consistent with their ideology that business is bad and the evil Republicans refused to execute proper regulation. Republicans focus on the housing mortgage crisis because that is consistent with their ideology that you have to earn what you get and the evil Democrats promoted absurd mortgages to people who couldn’t afford them for racist reasons.

Too bad so few of our leaders will admit to the validity of both points instead of wasting their time on pointless partisan bickering. Maybe then a more rational approach could be taken to dealing with current economic problems.

Brianna | November 3rd, 2009 at 4:36 pm

Tom – the housing mortgage crisis was what brought the bubble down, but the truth is that we’re on the tail end of a problem that’s been building for 20 years. If you’ll remember the housing bubble was created as a way to avert the recession that was looming when the stock bubble burst in 2001. Interest rates were fairly high at the time which was what brought the stock bubble to a head; Greenspan lowered them and banks that were being pressured to make subprime loans to people who couldn’t afford them were selling them to Fanne Mae and Freddie Mac on the premise that the government wouldn’t let them fall (which, give the bankers their due, they were right).

In short, yes the bankers and Wall Street went overboard. But it would never have gone as far or gotten as bad without the government and the federal reserve throwing their oar in and enabling the whole thing.

Brian | November 3rd, 2009 at 10:41 pm

Tom, they’re two sides of the same coin. The only politicians you’ll hear saying that are those in the same camp as Ron Paul, and there are precious few of them.