Monday, January 04, 2010
On the Cutting Room Floor
I guess with video they don’t actually physically cut anything and drop it to the floor, but if they did that’s where I’d be. After Bernanke’s presentation yesterday, CNN interviewed your faithful UC correspondent; it was a little blurb thing, "What one thing would you do to fix the economy?" They caught me off guard, and I’m afraid I wasn’t very eloquent, but at least I tried throwing the long bomb* and suggested two things (two is quite close to one in econometric estimations):
• Get the long run fiscal position of the federal government into balance. We have to do it by cutting spending and especially entitlements, we can’t do it by taxation. And if we don’t, we face a national bankruptcy.
• Get regulators into the financial markets, not to regulate innovation, but rather to enforce honest accounting and transparency. If we do, we’ll very possibly find that Goldman Sachs and similar big banks have been engaging in things that look awfully close to control fraud.
I wish I’d been considerably more eloquent, because these are important points, and any hearing they get is progress. But I was rather surprised that they wanted to interviewme instead of Bernanke.
Hmm. Could it be that CNN is slowly catching on to who really knows what’s important?
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*"Throwing a long bomb" is a term from American football, and refers to a bold attempt to make a sudden great gain. In particular, it’s not statement amount anything explosive. (Mr. Bernanke’s Secret Service detachment, please note!)
• Get the long run fiscal position of the federal government into balance. We have to do it by cutting spending and especially entitlements, we can’t do it by taxation. And if we don’t, we face a national bankruptcy.
• Get regulators into the financial markets, not to regulate innovation, but rather to enforce honest accounting and transparency. If we do, we’ll very possibly find that Goldman Sachs and similar big banks have been engaging in things that look awfully close to control fraud.
I wish I’d been considerably more eloquent, because these are important points, and any hearing they get is progress. But I was rather surprised that they wanted to interviewme instead of Bernanke.
Hmm. Could it be that CNN is slowly catching on to who really knows what’s important?
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
*"Throwing a long bomb" is a term from American football, and refers to a bold attempt to make a sudden great gain. In particular, it’s not statement amount anything explosive. (Mr. Bernanke’s Secret Service detachment, please note!)
