BC professors weigh in on financial turmoil

There are no shortages of opinions about the current financial troubles, and some professors at Boston College are offering theirs.

The following insight comes from Peter Ireland (right), the Murray and Monti professor of economics at BC.

"The recent turmoil in credit markets, though unprecedented in itself, serves mainly to confirm that despite the massive transformation of the US financial system, most of the old rules of economics still apply and that policy makers need to use every tool at their disposal to restore safety and soundness to even our very largest institutions,” Ireland said in a statement.

And, in a statement of his own, Dean Patrick J. Maney of BC's College of Arts and Sciences, had this to say: “Although there are some alarming parallels between the current Wall Street crisis and the events that led to the Great Depression, the differences between then and now far outweigh the similarities. As a result of the Great Depression, we have a large number of built-in safeguards, some of which, like a more powerful Federal Reserve System, should prevent the current crisis from becoming a full-blown depression.”

Ireland's photo was taken from BC's website.
(By Chris Reidy, Globe staff)