Nostalgia for the "Good Old Days"

Here's a posting by Paul Krugman on his NY Times blog that needs to be read and taken to heart:

Jamie Dimon Was Right

About the 19th century, that is.

Dimon was castigated by many people, me included, for saying that a financial crisis is “the type of thing that happens every five, ten, seven, years.” Hey, no big deal.

But that is the way banking worked once upon a time. I’m reading Gary Gorton’s Slapped by the Invisible Hand, which tells us that there were bank panics — systemic crises — in 1873, 1884, 1890, 1893, 1896, 1907, and 1914.

On the other hand, there were no systemic crises from 1934 to 2007.

The problem, as Gorton makes clear, is that the Quiet Period reflected a combination of deposit insurance and strong regulation — undermined by the rise of shadow banking. So we have a choice: restore effective regulation or go back to the bad old days.

I can't believe that the right wing in the US, the party of "No!", is growing in support. After 8 horrible years of incompetence under George Bush capped by a world-wide financial meltdown caused by the right's ideological "no government is the best government" and "just say 'no!' to regulation", these fanatics are crowing about winning in November.

I can't believe they are backslapping over their cruel "no!" to health reform as a socialist plot to remove "freedoms" from Americans. Well, yeah! The freedom to go bankrupt if a medical crisis occurs. The freedom to have insurance companies drop you. These ideologues refuse to look at the rest of the developed world and compare notes on health care. Everywhere else it is univeral, it is cheaper, people live longer, and nobody is bankrupted by a medical problem. But stout-hearted American's don't want the slavery this implies. They want to be free as in "free to let corporations rape them", free as in "letting prescription drug companies jack up prices and deny the right to bring in cheaper drugs from overseas", and "free to let hospitals to refuse treatment and put you in a taxi and dump you at some other hospital". Those are the heart-felt freedoms that resonate with Americans today!