The Definition of Insanity

This account of Economics Prof. DeLong's encounter with right wing proponent for keeping the disaster we've got, Grover Norquist, is so good I am just going to give it to you as it is written. As the title indicates, repeating something you did already and expecting different results seems to be the Party Line for the failures in the executive branch.

Preceded by several renditions of I HATE YELLING SHOWS! Brad DeLong has posted an absolutely wonderful account of being on a talk show with an official moran, here:

Called on forty minutes' notice, I trot over to the J-School studio to be a talking head on BBC/Newsnight about Fannie and Freddie. I have my talking points ready:

The chance that American taxpayers will actually lose any money if Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson decide that Fannie and Freddie need government support is very low:

* The interest payments they have coming in are greater than the interest payments they have going out.
* Their government guarantee is itself a very valuable asset that they have made a lot of money off of in the past and will make more off of in the future.
* They are not even in liquidity trouble--unless they begin to have problems rolling over their discount notes...
* As long as it is generally understood that they are too big to fail, they should not even have liquidity problems--absent a depression that bankrupts many currently-solvent homeowners, that is.

Nevertheless, there is now a risk that Fannie and Freddie will need some form of government support in the next month:

* The situation could require a lot of government-provided liquidity at any moment
* It and might even require more liquidity than the Federal Reserve can provide with its current balance sheet. Either the Fed needs to be given the power to pay interest on reserves immediately--so that it can swap interest-paying reserve deposits for mortgages next week--or this has to become not Fed but Treasury business.

The game the Fed and the Treasury are playing right now is as follows:

* Keep risky asset prices from collapsing...
* So that the flow of savings to finance construction and manufacturing expansion continues...
* So that employment declines in construction and supporting occupations are roughly balanced by employment expansions in export and import-competing manufacturing and supporting occupations...
* So that the economy does not fall into a depression deeper than that of 1982...
* In which case all bets are off

Supporting Fannie and Freddie may be something Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson decide we need to do in order to win this keep-the-economy-near full employment game:

* They are not in the business of rescuing feckless financiers from bankruptcy.
* If their actions do have the consequence of rescuing some feckless financiers from bankruptcy, that is a side effect of their keeping the financial crisis from spilling over and destroying the jobs of millions of Americans.
* To have the government step back in order to teach feckless financiers a lesson is simply not worth destroying the jobs of millions of Americans.
* They are grownups with good judgment and as much experience in this business as anybody.
* They are backstopped by committee chairs--Chris Dodd and Barney Frank--of equally good judgment.

Bernanke and Paulson have asked for additional regulatory authority:

* They should get it.
* Fannie's and Freddie's troubles make it more and more clear that the financial-market deregulation agenda of the late 1990s that Phil Gramm spearheaded was a more serious mistake than almost of any of us realized back at the time...
* There are a bunch of options if push comes to shov:
o Having the government formally guarantee GSE debt.
o Having the government provide capital to the GSEs.
o Having the government guarantee GSE preferred.
o Putting the GSEs into "conservatorship."
* The moral-hazard worriers in the Treasury will probably favor the last--that option penalizes GSE shareholders in the same way that Bear Stearns and LTCM shareholders and principals were penalized. The cautious will favor the first option, as running the least risk of aggravating uncertainty.

In short, I trot over to the J-School TV studio as part of the sober, sensible, bipartisan consensus, intending to carry water for Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson.

And what do I find also on BBC/Newsnight when I get there?

I FIND THAT I AM ON WITH GROVER-FRACKING-NORQUIST!! I FIND THAT I AM ON WITH GROVER-FRACKING-NORQUIST!!! WHO HAS THREE POINTS HE WANTS TO MAKE:

* Barack Obama wants to take your money by raising your taxes and pay it to the Communist Chinese.
* Oil prices are high today and the economy is in a near recession because of Nancy Pelosi: before Nancy Pelosi became speaker economic growth was fine--and she is responsible for high oil prices too.
* Economic growth is stalling because congress has not extended the Bush tax cuts. Congress needs to extend the Bush tax cuts, and if it does then that will fix the economy, and if it doesn't then the economy cannot recover.

I am not paid enough to deal with this lying bullshit. I am not paid enough to deal with Grover Norquist and his willful stream of defecation into the global information pool.

It is as Paul Krugman says somewhere: Grover Norquist's M.O.--George W. Bush's M.O.--the entire Republican Party's M.O. these days is (a) find a problem (i.e., financial crisis and threatening recession), (b) find something you want to do for other reasons unrelated to the problem (i.e., extend the Bush tax cuts), (c) claim without explanation that (b) will solve (a), and so (d) profit--because Peter Cardwell of BBC/Newsnight is too busy being the objective journalist referee of the yelling match to do his proper job and say:

Come, come, Mr. Norquist, are you serious? Your claim to believe that Nancy Pelosi's actions are responsible for the rise in oil prices is risible!

OK. Calm down. Adjust my meds...

Mr. Paulson? Ben? Are you there?

I have been carrying water for the two of you for a year now, as you have tried to do your jobs and contain the ongoing slow-motion financial crisis. Lots of us have been carrying water for you. Now you owe us a favor.

Will you please call John McCain Saturday morning. Call him jointly. Tell him that there is serious public business that needs to be done, and that pseudo-ideologues like Grover Norquist are not helping.

Tell him that unless he can control the swine like Grover Norquist and his ilk who work for him, that both of you are going to, Monday morning:

* announce your support for Barack Obama for president
* announce your change of affiliation from the Republican to the Democratic Party

You owe it. You owe it to me after that TV appearance. You owe it to all of us in the sober, sensible, bipartisan consensus. You owe it to your country. You owe it to the world.

This is so perfect I wanted you all to enjoy it along with me.