Recession blamed on radical free-market ideology

In a recent interview, Paul Samuelson, the 93 year-old Nobel Prize winner in Economics, discusses how economist Milton Friedman’s legacy of Reagan-era deregulation is one of the major culprits for the depth, breadth and length of the current recession. Samuelson forecasts the U.S. economy will not turn around until 2012–2014: a necessary first step before real estate can recover. But even then, Samuelson anticipates an inflation rate of 8% and an enormous withdrawal of Asian investment in U.S. treasuries for cash those nations will need to foster domestic economic growth, thus raising mortgage rates and curtailing any increase in U.S. real estate values.

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