A government failure, not a market failure

John H. Makin har et indlæg i Wall Street Journal (1/7), hvor han beskriver boligboblen som et fuldt ud rationelt resultat af regeringsindgreb i boligmarkedet. Han konkluderer blandt andet:

"The housing collapse and its painful aftermath, including that $15 trillion wealth loss for U.S. households (so far), do not, therefore, represent a market failure. Rather, they represent the dangerous confluence of three policy errors: government policy aimed at providing access to home ownership for American households irrespective of their ability to afford it; the Fed's claim that it could not identify bubbles as they were inflating but could fix the problem afterward; and a policy of granting monopoly power to rating agencies like Standard & Poor's, Moody's, and Fitch's to determine the eligibility of derivative securities for what are supposed to be low-risk portfolios, such as pension funds".

Finanskrisen og den økonomiske nedtur er med andre ord ikke markedets skyld, som man kan læse stort set hver eneste dag i dagspressen. Nej, det er regeringsindgreb, som er skyld i krisen.