David Leonhardt wants to congratulate the gang that led us into the worse economic downturn in more than 70 years because it will not be as bad as the Great Depression. Yes, the downturn could be worse, but let's be serious. This crash was 100 percent preventable to anyone watching the economy and capable of doing 3rd grade arithmetic. The housing bubble was easy to see and it should have been obvious that its collapse would devastate the economy. The "good" story is that we will have tens of millions of people unemployed or underemployed for years because of this gang's incompetence. Millions of people will lose their homes. The country will needlessly lose more than $6 trillion ($40,000 per family) of output. This is a complete disaster. Any custodian, dishwasher or shoe salesperson who showed the same degree of incompetence on their job would be fired instantly. There is no reason that the country should engage in this soft bigotry of low expectations when it comes to economic policy. This crew blew it just about as badly as anyone conceivably could. Saying that you didn't give us another great depression is not exactly a winning re-election slogan.
--Dean Baker
