Greg Ip

Articles by The Economist’s U.S. Economics Editor

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American economic intervention: Cavalry to the rescue (book review)

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The original story is linked here.

Mar 19th 2009
From The Economist print edition 

Bold Endeavors: How Our Government Built America, and Why It Must Rebuild Now
By Felix Rohatyn

1416533125

Simon & Schuster; 259 pages; $26

Buy it at
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk

IN THEIR collective mythology, Americans owe their wealth to an entrepreneurial spirit which government has usually only served to suppress. More so than any other society, Americans give private enterprise the benefit of the doubt. Even now, though outraged at the excesses that led to the current financial crisis, they are deeply cynical about the spending, bailouts and interventions that form the government’s response.

Yet the mythology is based on a selective interpretation of history. Felix Rohatyn demonstrates this by recounting ten episodes of significant and ultimately beneficial economic initiatives taken by past American governments. Read the rest of this entry »

Written by gregip

March 19, 2009 at 4:55 pm