Most liberal economists are covering their eyes this week as Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner unveils a federal plan for the government to buy up risky, distressed and overvalued assets, and most conservatives are apoplectic about President Obama's $3+ trillion budget and six eons of rising deficits. (Funny how they weren't so concerned about Reagan's deficits, or George W. Bush's.) Most of the political and economic weblogs I peruse see the Geithner Plan as a disaster in the making.
But it is Brad DeLong who wins the prize for summing the Geithner Plan up so succinctly as part of his more extended Q&A on the subject:
Q: What if markets never recover, the assets are not fundamentally undervalued, and even when held to maturity the government doesn't make back its money?
A: Then we have worse things to worry about than government losses on TARP-program money--for we are then in a world in which the only things that have value are bottled water, sewing needles, and ammunition.
Because I'm sometimes swayed by the more apocolyptic ruminations of military future thinker John Robb (who is convinced we're headed for a complete global meltdown -- economically, politically and socially), I like DeLong's short list of post-meltdown essentials.
Read all of DeLong's slightly optimistic view of the Geithner Plan here.
