Finanskrisen och ekonomerna

Jag läste igår på Econlog att, enligt en intervju-undersökning av John R. Lott, så är ledande ekonomer i USA emot den då föreslagna bail-outen. Från Lotts artikel:

Interviews conducted with a dozen prominent academic economists, Obama supporters as well as McCain supporters, found little support for the bailout bill. Indeed, even the one economist who supported the proposal passed by the Senate Wednesday night had serious reservations. ...

All the economists criticized the government-mandated accounting rules, so-called “mark to market.” While these rules were reasonable in principle, they were applied to situations that they weren’t meant to apply to. Paul Evans, an economics professor at Ohio State University, explained that you run into real problems when “someone trades a tiny fraction of a particular type of asset at a very low price to clear it off the books. It is then used to estimate the price of all these other assets.”

In addition, most of the economists criticized the federal government for restricting mortgage lenders’ ability to require down payments and properly check credit scores, but they were not unanimous on how much of the problem could be attributable to this. ...

Economists might be known for disagreeing with each other, but there is surprising agreement regarding the bailout and the causes for the current financial problems. There was no support for the broad bailout being discussed in Washington, and the economists believed that the same outcome could be achieved at much lower cost to the taxpayers.

Det här kan vara av intresse för de som hävdar att bail-outen (som eufemistiskt kallas för "krisplan") var en bra plan. Nu gick den tyvärr igenom, så det är för sent att ändra sig.