When the people of Syria came out to peacefully protest in large numbers, Assad went after them like Hitler was going into Poland. It was like the Iranian regime in 2009. The response was so vicious, so cruel, so large scale. Armies are supposed to fight external wars.
Assad is responsible for the Syria tragedy. But he does not feel it because Syria is not a democracy.
Raghuram Rajan, India's Departing Central Banker, Has a New Warning
2008 was a wasted crisis. It was a crisis that could have helped the world take one big leap towards a knowledge economy. The world had an opportunity to shape globoeconomics, a new third dimension to the traditional micro and macroeconomics. Some new global institutions were needed. America needed a three trillion stimulus with much of that money ending on Main Street, but instead ended up with a much bigger monetary stimulus with all the money ending up on Wall Street, pretty much free.
If the interest rates stay at near zero for long enough, it is no longer a tool, is it? But what if that has been your only tool? Then you have no available tool the next time a big crisis hits.
