Big Punches from B-P

After the economic stress of the last week, I had to turn to the Becker-Posner Blog to see their response. They didn't disappoint. Some money quotes:

Here's Becker:

Is this the final "Crisis of Global Capitalism" [....] The crisis that kills capitalism has been said to happen during every major recession and financial crisis ever since Karl Marx prophesized the collapse of capitalism in the middle of the 19th century [....] I expect robust world economic growth to resume once we are over the current severe financial difficulties.

Posner is more fatalistic:

I agree with Becker that capitalism will survive the current financial crisis, even if it leads to a major depression (which it may not). It will survive because there is no alternative that hasn't been thoroughly discredited [....] But capitalism may survive only in damaged, in compromised, form [....] The New Deal, spawned in the depression, ushered in a long era of heavy government regulation; and likewise today there is both advocacy and the actuality of renewed regulation.