THE FINANCIAL SYSTEM HAS REACHED the point of maximum peril. After years of profligacy, banks have all but stopped lending to each other as the US Congress decides whether to extend support. If the unravelling of the banking system continues, the economic consequences will be dire. Yet there is an even greater risk: that the politicians now contemplating Wall Street's follies draw the wrong conclusions and take the wrong decisions, losing their confidence in markets altogether.
這將不是第一次。1929年華爾街股災后，市場被認為已經失效，美國立法者試圖通過管制找到穿越危機的捷徑。被廣泛效仿的《司莫特-郝利關稅法》(Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act)使成千上萬種進口商品的有效稅率提高了三倍，加深了1929年至1933年間的“大蕭條”。而反市場情緒的盛行，讓歐洲一些初具雛形的民主政治付出了更高昂的代價：法西斯主義。
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