On the net, the financial policies since the crisis have definitely been detrimental. Savings is being destroyed in order to "boost" the economy (i.e. Keynesianism), and all it did was inflate several bubbles.
While the Fed isn't clean in this story, the federal government is more to blame. After all, it controls the Fed like the other Departments: it nominates its heads and dictates its general direction. In the present situation, it was to "stimulate" the economy by quadrupling the monetary supply. It was a miserable failure...
I tend to support that hypothesis, as well...just trying to be balanced despite my own priors :)
I also agree that the savings destroying "boost" nonsense is likely destructive.
To hell with balancing! The simple fact that you talk about it shows that you have biases. I was a reporter for 2 years in a small weekly, and the simple fact that I would report on this rather than that showed a bias.
ha, great point! Still, I'm trying to present both sides since it is complex, then just weighing in with my own qualified opinion...
that's for the economic complexities; as for the moral arguments, i'm always unambiguously pro-freedom.