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Article: The misguided call for intervention.(Economics)
- Article from:
- USA TODAY
- Article date:
- May 1, 2009
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2009 Society for the Advancement of Education. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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AS THE U.S. FINANCIAL crisis persists, policymakers feel compelled to act. They seek to counter the housing-wealth shock by extending the pool of risk-beating creditors. With oil magnates and other wealthy foreigners unlikely to provide sufficient capital injections to private U.S. firms, policymakers are turning to another group of prospective creditors: future generations, who can be "forced" to lend through a debt-financed government bailout plan. Intervention proponents can argue that future generations, were they around, should--and would--be willing to sacrifice some of their (eventually larger) resources to help current generations (and themselves) to dig out of a ...