In the last few years in interviews on the economy, I have been asked what I would do if I were in charge. In answering the question I usually started with explaining the errors we made that gave us the crisis. The interviewer frequently responded by saying that he wasn’t interested in the cause of the problem, only what we should do now to correct it.
This is a typical attitude in Washington. But, we cannot expect correct policies to be implemented if we don’t understand the cause of the crises. Instead, we have pursued all the wrong policies. Let me list a few mistakes we have made.