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[DemReadingDU]

Very good!

3/17/09 Mr. Bernanke Spreads the Fire By MICHAEL HUDSON

What’s false about this analogy? For starters, banking houses are not in the same neighborhood where most people live. They’re the castle on the hill, lording it over the town below. They can burn down and leave the hilltop revert “back to nature” rather than having the whole down gaze up at a temple of money that keeps them in debt.

More to the point is the false analogy with U.S. policy. In effect, the Treasury and Fed are not “putting out a fire.” They’re taking over houses that have not burned down, throwing out their homeowners and occupants, and turning the property over to the culprits who “burned down their own house.” The government is not playing the role of fireman. “Putting out the fire” would be writing off the debts of the economy – the debts that are “burning it down.”

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http://www.counterpunch.org/hudson03172009.html