Niall Ferguson's "The Great Repression"

[tengen]

Here's an interesting and provocative article by Niall Ferguson on fixing the credit crunch:

 

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,25115869-643,00.html

 

A few quotes:

 

"No one seems to have noticed that there is already a bad bank. It is called the Federal Reserve System, and its balance sheet has grown by 150 per cent - from just over $US900 billion to more than $US2 trillion - since this crisis began, partly as a result of purchases of undisclosed assets from banks."

 

"The solution to the debt crisis is not more debt but less debt. Two things must happen. First, banks that are de facto insolvent need to be restructured, a word that is preferable to the old-fashioned nationalisation."

 

"The second step we need to take is a generalised conversion of American mortgages to lower interest rates and longer maturities."