A common ground of left and right

The Convergence of George Will and Sherrod Brown 

By SIMON JOHNSON, NYT

Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is the Ronald A. Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship at the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management and co-author of "White House Burning: The Founding Fathers, Our National Debt, and Why It Matters to You."

In his latest column, George Will, the dean of conservative commentators, endorsed proposals from Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio and a leading voice for breaking up the country's largest banks. Mr. Will wrote, as always, eloquently and in no uncertain terms - although the references to revolution do not appear in all his pieces:

By breaking up the biggest banks, conservatives will not be putting asunder what the free market has joined together. Government nurtured these behemoths by weaving an improvident safety net and by practicing crony capitalism. Dismantling them would be a blow against government that has become too big not to fail. Aux barricades!

With perfect timing, the deep economic thinking that helps explain this convergence between Mr. Will and Senator Brown appeared this week in a form that is easy to read and readily comprehensible by a lay audience: "The Bankers' New Clothes: What's Wrong With Banking and What to Do About It," by Anat Admati and Martin Hellwig (I immediately bought 10 copies).

(More here.)