I do not claim that the policy of recent years was perfect

In the United States and the rest of the world, advocates of a "centrist" economic policy attacked any part. According to a survey of the economic policy Institute, in their overwhelming majority, the Americans believe that measures taken last year enabled New York and London bankers to grow considerably.

Washington, the Republican Party says no: no to a deficit to combat unemployment, not to the rescue of the banking and non-system to more control by the State of financial institutions. The banks themselves found their good old habits and oppose any reform are to delay.

I do not claim that the policy of recent years was perfect. If I were to power 13 months ago, the US Treasury and Federal Reserve have left sinking Lehman and AIG, but I would have traded their claims against the cash at their nominal value - insofar as these claims were sufficiently covered by warrants for shares. This would have preserved the functioning of the system, while severely punishing shareholders of banks and no banker could not claim that its risk management was adequate and did not call for reform.

If I were to nineteen months ago, I would have nationalized Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and for the duration of the crisis I would have changed its monetary and financial policy with the aim not the federal funds rate, but the cost of home loans. Active 1825, The nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and their use to control the cost of home loans, would have been the easiest and the best solution.

In any event, since two and a half years, economic policy is good. A shock much more brutal than that of 1929-1930 a hit a financial system much more vulnerable at this time. Despite this, unemployment will peak around 10, not 24, and that this was the case in the United States during the great depression. And there is not a decade of economic stagnation as was the case in the Japan in the 1990s. It is true that it fixed the fairly low bar by this comparison, but the action of the political leadership has had positive results.

Can look back and wonder what would be today like the global economy if policy makers had assigned to populism and had not supported the banks. What would it happened if the Republican opposition to redemptions of toxic assets and economic stimulus measures had triumphed

During the great depression, the financial crisis has caused Bank chain failures without any State intervention.

Nineteen months ago Bear Stearns was bankrupt and was purchased by JPMorgan Chase on March 16, 2008, with assistance from the Fed $ 30 billion. Industrial production is now at 14 percent below its peak of 2007. As a comparison, nineteen months after the bankruptcy of the Bank of the United States, December 11, 1930, industrial production was 54 below its peak of 1929.

Opponents of the new economic policy do not want to believe that without the intervention of the State the collapse could have such a scale. They believe that modern economies are stable and resistant, that markets are solid networks is the best incentive possible to foster exchanges and make the best use of resources.

If they were right, the inevitable conclusion would be that the situation was not as catastrophic as that of December 1930. The problem is that all the reasons to believe that depression severe as that of 1929 can happen in a market economy are equally applicable to it than that today!

But it did take place. And there may be others...