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p>As Milton Friedman and Ben Bernanke have stated: The Great Depression could have been averted had the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve sought and Congress had agreed in 1930 and after to fund failed banks or their depositors -- and thereafter had kept the money supply growing at a prudent rate. President Hoover would most likely have served a pleasant second term without anyone ever needing or hearing of a New Deal. Instead, the US Treasury took a tough love approach and closed failed bank after failed bank, leaving their depositors penniless. Even worse, the Fed and Treasury allowed the money supply to contract to the point that its size in 1934 was one-half the size it had in October 1929, insuring five more years of national poverty. We should thank God for Paulson and Bernanke -- rather than second-guess them. It was not they who created the current meltdown. br> -- Darrel Hansen br> Alamo, Nevada. /p> p> WHAT CURRICULUM IS THAT? br> Re: Ralph R. Reiland's Obama World Flunks Economics 101 : /p> p>Pondering the NYT 's "government-is-good-markets-are-bad ideology" prompts me to recall that the NYT
Chris Moraghan| 7.20.10 @ 8:21PM
Don Parnell writes that "anti-English vitriol seemed to donimate radio waves" on one occasion when he turned in to BBC Radio Scotland. The BBC observes strict standards would not allow the kind of thing that he describes. I would also point out that Rob Johnston's letter did not deny that there is a certain amount of Anglophobia in Scottish society: he merely pointed out that such prejudice is not prevalent and that a certain amount of anti-Scottish sentiment exists in England. I am an Englishman who has lived in Scotland for the last 14 years and I can assure Mr. Parnell that if he has "friends in Scotland who have a common hatred of England", then he should chose his friends more carefully. The propagators of xenophobic hatred are a small idiot minority on both sides of the Anglo-Scottish Border. Most people in Britain are not like that.
Bill Kyler| 8.24.10 @ 9:09PM
Re: Don Parnell’s letter (under “I Say, My Dear Fellow” in Reader Mail’s ‘Hail King Henry’, in which he takes issue with Rob Johnston’s letter (under “Finding Scotland” in Reader Mail’s ‘Panic City’).
As an American citizen who has lived for a number of years in England, I agree with Chris Moraghan’s remarks on this matter.
First off, (with all due respect to Mr. Parnell) I cannot help but think that Mr. Johnson (as a Scotsman who lived in England) is better qualified to judge the extent of anti-Scottish prejudice in England than a visiting American: especially since he appears to have been in direct receipt of more than a little of it himself.
Second thing. Mr. Parnell seems to equate “talk of Scottish secession” with Anglophobia. Does this mean he reckons anyone who doesn’t want their country to be ruled by England necessarily hates the English people? Where does that analysis leave George Washington and Mahatma Gandhi? Does Mr. Parnell think the U.S.A. should return to English rule? I know what most Americans would say to that proposition – and it would not be fit to print! But does that really make us England-hating racists?