Unfortunately, we are thwarted at the outset. There’s simply no objective way to know whether the banking system is as close to disaster as top officials at the Treasury and Federal Reserve claim. They themselves don’t really know. This is a “banking crisis,” they say. But then again, other politicians claim there is a “health care crisis,” an “immigration crisis,” an “energy crisis,” and so on.

There’s no doubt that there is serious turmoil in the banking system and financial markets. But that doesn’t mean the proposed extraordinary intervention by the government in private markets is justified, considering that throughout history we have periodically gone through convulsions worse than today’s and survived them without such interventions.

As always, read the whole thing.

The more I learn about the proposal, the less I like it, so I guess I'm with QG on this one. Some sort of government involvement is probably inevitable, but since it was largely government involvement that created this mess in the first place, I would like it to be less rather than more and if more, it should be phased in so that there's time to study the effects.