“The best cure for a recession is a recession”

Texas Congressman Ron Paul wrote in February 2009:
 
“First of all, just as the best cure for a hangover is not to drink so much, the best cure for a recession is a recession. It is time to sober up and return to free market sanity, risk and reward, supply and demand, without political intervention. Politicians are good at catering to the needs of special interests, but very bad at determining what needs to take place in the market. Government should stick to punishing fraud and enforcing contracts. When they use the tax code, bureaucratic departments and their manipulative rules and regulations to dictate social and economic behavior, we end up with distortions and malinvestments. Bailing out banks, continuing failed Fed policies and strapping the taxpayer with toxic debt will worsen the pain, and punish the innocent.”
 
While Congressman Paul popularized “the best cure for a recession is a recession,” the saying “the best cure for high prices is high prices” is much older and has been cited in print since at least 1918.
 
 
LewRockwell.com
February 3, 2009
Cures for Our Economic Disease
by Ron Paul
(...)
First of all, just as the best cure for a hangover is not to drink so much, the best cure for a recession is a recession. It is time to sober up and return to free market sanity, risk and reward, supply and demand, without political intervention. Politicians are good at catering to the needs of special interests, but very bad at determining what needs to take place in the market. Government should stick to punishing fraud and enforcing contracts. When they use the tax code, bureaucratic departments and their manipulative rules and regulations to dictate social and economic behavior, we end up with distortions and malinvestments. Bailing out banks, continuing failed Fed policies and strapping the taxpayer with toxic debt will worsen the pain, and punish the innocent.
     
LewRockwell.com
March 30, 2009
That Speech By Daniel Hannan: Fiat Money and Inflation
by Chris Clancy
(...)
Far be it from me to start throwing out well-worn Austrian adages but this one bears repeating again and again — the cure for a recession is a recession.
   
Dennis Tubbergen
Business Insider: World Central Banks on Red Alert
Posted on August 6, 2012 by Dennis Tubbergen
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There is an old saying that the best cure for a recession is a recession.  Unfortunately, it’s true; but there is a silver lining.
 
In every recession there are segments of the economy that do well or have the potential to do well.  Policymakers just need to get out of the way by stopping the money printing; the politicians that set policy in Washington should do the same by eliminating excessive and burdensome regulations.
 
AG Web
Ghost Ryder
08-11-2012 09:49 AM
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It piszes me off that what should be a celebration of individual human achievement became a bunch of Nationalist display of small-wiener-syndrome. This is where the Central Banking angle comes in. These guys don’t understand that high prices cure high prices, low prices cure low prices, and the cure for a recession is a recession. Until the mal-investment is cleared away like underbrush from the forest, we will never have economic growth. Add in resource constraints and poof, it’s back to 1800s again. We need more Capitalism in a resource constrained world, not less.
   
Dennis Tubbergen
Republicans Eyeing a Return to the Gold Standard? … I Don’t Believe It
Posted on August 29, 2012 by Dennis Tubbergen
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But, a recession, even an ugly recession, is just what we need in order to purge debt excesses from the system.  As the old saying goes, the best cure for a recession is a recession.