There is no simple, painless solution. The world has to reduce debt, shrink the financial part of the economy, and change the destructive incentive structures in finance. Individuals in developed countries have to save more and spend less. Companies have to go back to real engineering. Governments have to balance their books better. Banking must become a mechanism for matching savers and borrowers, financing real things. Banks cannot be larger than nations, countries in themselves. Countries cannot rely on debt and speculation for prosperity.

In his excellent book Choice, Robert Murphy beautifully described how Ludwig von Mises saw the power of ideas:

Recently, Paul Krugman went off on one of his usual rants, suggesting that the Libertarian Party’s opposition to environmental regulation was a recipe for disaster. 

Not so fast, says Tyler Cowen. The problem with the anti-regulation position is that it is not pro-pollution enough. Cowen explains: 

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are lowering mortgage standards.  On Monday, the two government-backed housing giants revealed a new program designed to boost mortgage origination among first time buyers and those with low to medium incomes.

Since 1980, during the Carter Administration, America’s K-12 education system has come under increasing control by the dictates of the federal Department of Education (DOE) with failing results, taxing states and filtering the money through Washington to return a portion of it back to the states. In 2002, the Bush Administration approved the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act creating punishing amounts of federal paperwork and bureaucracy for local schools, requiring

Last week on September 9th, a gas pipeline in Alabama began leaking, significantly shrinking the supply of gasoline in the Southeast, including the state of Georgia. This pipeline alone is estimated to supply the East Coast with up to 40 percent of its gasoline. Pipeline volume has still not returned to normal, although normal levels are said to return “fairly soon.”