November 17, 2008--Harvard Economics Professor Alberto Alesina, whose book The Size of Nations against nation-states has become the Bible of Belgian separatists, is now saying that it's okay for governments to shell out state money for banks, but industries should be left to die.

In an interview with La Repubblica, Alesina says: "There is a difference between the intervention to avoid the failure of a bank ... and the failure of a non-financial company, or the crisis of an industrial sector." Banks should receive state money, but the state "should stay away from managing and conditioning the credit issued." Further, industrial firms should not be supported. Let them die, and give the money to the newly laid off workers. "Instead of giving money to a declining industry, it would be better to give it to those unemployed from that industry, in order to keep demand up." He expanded: "Moments of crisis are also moments of creative destruction; companies die that have no future, and new ones are born, which instead have a future." And don't heed the cries coming from industry so much: "Companies are interested in being dramatic in order to get more state aid."