[TwelveOfTwenty]

The tech boom and bust happened because the Federal Reserve printed so much money.

Do you honestly believe that ecommerce and Y2K, and the jobs they created, would not have happened without Federal Reserve money? Or that all of those COBOL programmers would have been retained if more Fed money was thrown at Y2K after 2000?

I share your dislike of the UAW but free trade had nothing to do with it.

I didn't blame free trade, or the foreign companies that sell cars here. I blame the poor quality of American cars that resulted in losing half of the home market to foreign makes.

[BfloGuy]

Do you honestly believe that ecommerce and Y2K, and the jobs they created, would not have happened without Federal Reserve money? Or that all of those COBOL programmers would have been retained if more Fed money was thrown at Y2K after 2000?

Ecommerce and Y2K would have happened without Fed money. That's certainly true.

But Y2K turned out to be overstated [full disclosure: I made a lot of money on Y2K projects. I knew COBOL!] But the Y2K thing had nothing to do with Fed money-printing.

The Dot-com bubble, though, was a result of monetary inflation leading people to invest in foolish projects.

The Internet would have happened without Fed interference -- sooner probably. And without the recession.