History of Financial Bailouts

If you liked FreedomWorks’ Roots of the Crisis, you’ll enjoy this.  The February issue of the Freeman magazine has a great article by free banking historian and economist Larry White on the recent history of financial bailouts.  It’s a historical narrative of financial bailouts over the last year.  Check it out here.  

White begins his conclusion with an explanation of the economic problems caused by bailing out failing businesses:

Paulson’s and Bernanke’s bailout programs are disabling the key market mechanisms for correcting entrepreneurial errors: price adjustments and bankruptcies. Delays in the correction of mortgage asset prices, and delays in the necessary resolution of insolvent financial institutions, do not promote but rather hinder a sound economic recovery. As ABC News commentator John Stossel has written: “We do need protection from reckless businessmen. But there is only one way to provide that: market discipline. That means no privileges and no bailouts.”

Further disruption of the price system by government intervention will only cause the problems that the financial system is experiencing now to persist.