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> We haven't escaped the depression; the bailouts and quantitative easing simply delayed it for a bit, and the more it is delayed, the worse it will be. How so

• TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
  The economy has become an absolutely horrific place for most of the population. Financial security is an unrealisable dream for most workers. Bailouts saved the economy for the proverbial 1%, who are doing wonderfully. But no one else is. (I'm including many HN readers in the 1% because they work in a privileged and relatively highly paid part of the job market.) When the mountain of debt finally implodes, it's going to be far worse than 2008. This is very different to - say - the 50s and 60s - when ordinary working people could accumulate significant assets by working hard and saving.
  • pas 8y ago
    A no-bailout crash would have hurt the 99% even more. We all can kumbayaa about how the Fed enriched the asset holders, and how unfair that is, but they did what they were able to, while Congress did nothing. (The Obama stimulus was too small, and no reform followed, the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act was a mere correction of something that should have been there all along.) The mountain of debt imploded in 2008, and since then financial regulation is very much systemic stress test based. The next crisis will be at least different. Bankers can just sit back, relax, and watch as the world burns around them.