Rx for Bailoutitis

One of the most depressing aspects of the bailout mania gripping the economy is the absence of any effort to include critics like Peter Schiff, who saw the credit crisis coming, and were roundly ignored. You would think that these would be the guys policy makers would turn to for ideas on getting out of this mess. Instead, the Paulsons, Rubins, Greenspans, Franks, and Dodds who led us in are also proposing to lead us out. 

Schiff has a good piece in the W$J, in which he argues that a recession is the most efficient way to get out of this mess. I strongly suspect that the average American understands, and accepts, this on a gut level (although they would reserve the right to bitch and moan the entire length of any downturn). However, the political and business class obviously has no stomach for such a painful, but necessary, cure. It's not just that they don't want to lose their power and prestige; they are also afraid that the world they have inhabited and mastered - that of a gov't structure built in the Thirties married to a business model built in the Eighties - is not long for this earth.