Long Term Economic Policy

And Also: Various justices have been concerned of late about civics education. Kennedy had a series of seminars. Breyer gave interviews, only partially to promote his book, itself a learning tool. Rather private Souter was on a panel (aired on America and the Courts) promoting civics and funding of the humanities. [He also pointed out courts in different eras have different understandings of societal realities using Plessy v. Brown.] And, O'Connor is promoting a new website geared to schoolchildren.

The Treasury Secretary prologues his plan for bad bank assets thusly:

No crisis like this has a simple or single cause, but as a nation we borrowed too much and let our financial system take on irresponsible levels of risk. Those decisions have caused enormous suffering, and much of the damage has fallen on ordinary Americans and small-business owners who were careful and responsible. This is fundamentally unfair, and Americans are justifiably angry and frustrated.

And later:

This requires those in the private sector to remember that government assistance is a privilege, not a right. When financial institutions come to us for direct financial assistance, our government has a responsibility to ensure these funds are deployed to expand the flow of credit to the economy, not to enrich executives or shareholders. These provisions need to be designed and applied in a way that does not deter the participation by the private sector in generally available programs to stabilize the housing markets, jump-start the credit markets, and rid banks of legacy assets.

Any plan that will have long term success, or a shot at it, needs to address the "irresponsible levels of risk" and other things that are "fundamentally unfair" that leads us to be (not mindless "populist anger") "justifiably angry and frustrated." Quick attempts to take back bonuses via taxation and the like is not the way to do this. I don't know if this plan will work, though some economists are more optimistic than others. I trust these people more than the last set of boobs in office, or the likes of "I don't know much about economics" McCain and his "you betcha" sidekick, though that is a pretty low bar.

FWIW. But, I do know that if our only concern is that: "We cannot solve this crisis without making it possible for investors to take risks," we will be in trouble. We also cannot truly solve this crisis without changing the way those risks are made, so that we won't go through something like this again. Or, at least, as badly. The way not to do this is just focusing on dealing with the mess after it happened, which will more likely occur if we don't do some things to stop it from being such a big mess the next time around.

The insiders chosen to be on Obama's team doesn't help make me more confident about these things, but hopefully, the force of reality will set in enough to give it a shot of happening.