Three Cheers For David Brooks

I'm not sure I could have said it better about the fixes for the economic conundrum we find ourselves in than the centrist David Brooks in today's New York Times (Money For Idiots).  I recommend reading the whole thing, but here's a clip explaining why we must hold our nose while we throw money at the industries and people who were most responsible for the current crisis.

Right now, the economic landscape looks like that movie of the swaying Tacoma Narrows Bridge you might have seen in a high school science class. It started swinging in small ways and then the oscillations built on one another until the whole thing was freakishly alive and the pavement looked like liquid.

A few years ago, the global economic culture began swaying. The government enabled people to buy homes they couldn’t afford. The Fed provided easy money. The Chinese sloshed in oceans of capital. The giddy upward sway produced a crushing ride down.

These oscillations are the real moral hazard. Individual responsibility doesn’t mean much in an economy like this one. We all know people who have been laid off through no fault of their own. The responsible have been punished along with the profligate.

Brooks also makes the point that government is not the ultimately in the Final Judgment business, and has a responsibility to all its citizens, not just the ones that make good economic decisions.  Of course, this implies a delicate balance since our economy is fundamentally based on rewarding individuals for good decisions.