I'd like to ask some naive questions about the proposals with respect to the economy. Well, perhaps they're naive, perhaps they are not. But I would like to ask people out there to comment and provide dicussion and answers if they can. Heck, if you can't do these, at least add your questions...
Here are my specific questions:
(1) If we got into this problem because banks were making bad loans, then why are we encouraging them to make more loans? If the loans looked as if they were OK, wouldn't they go ahead and make them?
(2) Everyone - at least many people, from Krugman to Obama - says that government needs to spend our way out of this crisis. But isn't the problem that we spent ourselves into the crisis? It seems to me that we're going to need to go on a fiscal diet at some point -- isn't borrowing just postponing the problem?
(3) There is a lot of talk against government waste and pork and earmarks. It seems to me that one person's investment may be described as another person's pork. What is the definition? What are the criteria?
(4) I can understand that everyone likes tax cuts, and I can understand that there is a case for certain tax cuts. However, it seems to me that there are several areas where raising taxes would be beneficial to our economy and to our environment (such as on gas and on the very wealthy). Why aren't the politicians talking about this more - are there sound economic reasons against this or is it purely political?