Does keeping rates low risk inflation?
A. It’s not a great thing to do in terms of risking inflation, but since the whole world is pretty much going into recession, it’s less of a worry. Q. What has the U.S. government done correctly? What have they done wrong? Is the situation at all under their control? A. They’ve tried a lot, and I think it hasn’t really affected things that much. You could say the details were wrong. I think the original plan [by Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson] was quite sensible, and people were very critical of it. But once the House rejected it, that set us on to a very different dynamic. The original purpose of the bailout plan was to spend $700 billion on problem assets to try to restore confidence to the markets. Now, basically, the $700 billion is going to be used for many things including handouts, it seems, which is unfortunate. It doesn’t really seem that all the banks really want this extra money. The idea is that banks aren’t lending because they are undercapitalized, but they may not be le
