WASHINGTON — In the 1990s, when Latin America and Asia were rocked by financial crises similar to the one now dogging the United States, Washington officials were quick with stern advice: Don't bail out distressed banks. Don't intervene when stock market and real estate bubbles pop. Let your overblown economies shrink to their natural levels.
"It was all, 'You've got to be tough and take your castor oil,' " said Joseph E. Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors under President Clinton and former vice president of the World Bank.
To date, U.S. officials haven't followed any of the advice they so readily dispensed to others. They have tried to aid troubled banks. They have slashed interest rates to help the struggling housing and stock markets. They have made it clear that they will go to extreme lengths to keep the American economy out of recession.
But if the current prescription fails to provide long-term relief, what comes next? The answer, many economists say, could be that old castor oil.
"People are going to have to buckle up their seat belts and expect some dicey economic times for much of the year," said William Grenier, chief investment officer at UMBS Management, a $12-billion asset management firm in Kansas City, Mo. "We're going to have to let the excesses wash out of the system."
Financial markets, battered in recent days on fears of a sharp U.S. economic downturn, showed signs of recovery Wednesday. The Dow Jones industrial average posted a gain of nearly 299 points, or 2.5%, after falling more than 300 points earlier in the trading session.
Coming a day after the Federal Reserve made the largest cut in its key interest rate in more than two decades to buoy the financial system, the rebound in share prices was greeted with great relief.
But as many economists and market players point out, the nation's current economic problems have shown a disturbing tendency to outstrip assessments of their dimensions.
If that continues, it could force officials to consider stronger medicine than they have done -- perhaps even as strong as that they previously advised other nations to take.
So far, the Fed has taken the lead in efforts to bolster the economy from the effects of the housing bust and the resulting credit crunch that has strained the financial system.
