Do we have the capability to eliminate booms and busts in economic activity? The answer in my judgment is no, because there is no tool to change human nature. Too often people are prone to recurring bouts of optimism and pessimism.
June 20, 2011
It was a warm summer day in downtown Boston in the 1960s. I had the top down on my burgundy 1966 Lincoln Continental convertible and sat in traffic listening to closing stock prices. The car, complete with black leather seats and suicide doors, was similar to the one in which Jack Kennedy had been shot three years earlier. As the stock...