Decade of the Living Dead

22:20 16/12/2010 - Πηγή: i-Reporter

Barry Ritholtz expresses amazement at the way the Fannie-Freddie-CRA lie — the claim that gubmint bureaucrats forced all those poor bankers into making bad loans — not only persists, but seems to be growing in influence. But this story is hardly unique. Ever since I began writing for the Times — and probably before, but I wasn’t paying so much attention then — I’ve been struck over and over again by the unkillability of zombie lies.

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mean, supply-side economics should have been killed by the Clinton years: he raised taxes on the rich, everyone on the right predicted catastrophe, and what followed was 8 years of rapid growth and surging revenues, with the budget actually moving into surplus for the first time in three decades. But no: the right interpreted all the good stuff as a lagged effect of the 1981 tax cut (which meant that LBJ deserved credit for Morning in America, but who’s counting?)

Or consider the California electricity crisis of 2001-2002. Years afte