What do Libertarians think is the right thing to do about the economic mess America is in right now?
I know they probably think that if the country were Libertarian, we wouldn’t be having these problems. But Libertarians generally oppose government interventions, so what do they think should be done now that we are in this mess. What is the ‘Libertarianly correct’ way to handle these problems?
Check www.lewrockwell.com. There is a link on the left for “Last 7 days”. I’m sure there are a number of columns on this.
Their answer to any problem is that the government do nothing because it is just going to make things worse.
Many of them hold this not just because they believe that in practice government just messes things up, but because they believe that in principle the government cannot help, or at best the government can help something specific but cause more other problems, i.e., that the net effect is always harm.
That is, it is not just that our specific government is inefficient and incompetent. It is that a perfect government intervention still could not avoid overall harm.
I don’t know that I am convinced, but … lean, say, in their direction.
So if I’m understanding correctly, they would let the financial repercussions be whatever they are, no matter how bad it gets. Even if the economy would collapse?
The federal government arrogated unto itself a monopoly in central banking in 1913. Having done so, it has no choice but to do “central bank things” like arrange mergers and liquidations of troubled financial institutions and act as a buyer of last resort for distressed financial assets.
There no longer is any libertarian way of handling these problems, because the non-state institutions which would have the resouces to do so (private central banks) no longer exist.
I am a libertarian and I oppose all measures to save anything to do with the housing market crisis. For every person losing money on their house, their is another that gets to afford one. The mortgage market created the problems themselves for reasons that were obvious to me when we bought our house 7 years ago and banks approved us for a mortgage that was close to 100% of our income. Of course we did not take it but many people did.
When it comes to the mortgage crisis, it needs to just settle itself out no matter how many companies need to go under or people that need to lose their homes. All of them are responsible for it. It will likely make the difference if my kids (our yours) can afford to buy their own homes some day. It should be a lesson learned (not punishment) and a chance for other people to buy homes in previously unaffordable locations.