President Bush and the Congress are endeavoring to increase investor confidence in business and the equity markets. This is not such a good idea. It was misplaced confidence that caused bad investments to be made in the first place. Many of those bad investments were made evident when the dot-coms bombed. Increasing confidence for its own sake would simply be recreating the same situation where unwarranted confidence led to error. Government-inspired confidence is like advertising. The government encourages you to invest in some part of the economy by way of telling you how safe it is now that they've gotten … Continue reading The Government Confidence Game