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A comment on Fed takes over AIG. Parent comment

Re:Fed takes over AIG by lacker on Tuesday September 16, 2008 @09:48PM (#306562)
You don't think the Fanny bailout "worked"? We don't have the luxury of seeing what would have happened if we hadn't bailed them out.

To make the pro-bailout argument more clear, here is one reputable economist predicting that if we had let the FMs default, the dollar would drop about 30% and unemployment would double, in about a week.

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/09...

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Re:Fed takes over AIG by ojbyrne on Wednesday September 17, 2008 @12:04AM (#306667)
You're correct, I was glib. But I think those things will happen anyway - they'll just take longer than a week.
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Re:Fed takes over AIG by byrneseyeview on Tuesday September 16, 2008 @10:19PM (#306584)
So it would be like a 19th-century panic/recession, without hard money. He's omitting the part where, since we aren't subsidizing stupid decisions, stupid decisions don't get made and the economy recovers very quickly.
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Re:Fed takes over AIG by lacker on Wednesday September 17, 2008 @02:09AM (#306735)
If only subsidizing nothing was sufficient to prevent stupid decisions from being made!
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