Mitt Romney, likewise, gets an F for avoiding the question and another F for missing a golden opportunity to make an important principled point about the role of government when it comes to price matters.

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Furthermore, in practice invocation of the precautionary principle focuses attention solely on the possibility of harm, often ignoring information about the dose to which people are exposed, avoiding consideration of benefits of the agent in question and whether safer substitutes are available, and giving greater weight to studies that appear to indicate a hazard, even when these studies may be of poorer quality.

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If you question the effectiveness of avoiding mistakes then consider this: if your portfolio loses 50%, you need to earn 100% just to break even.

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The question now is whether his successor will have better fortune avoiding obvious potholes and charting a way forward.

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Beyond that, unless demand slows enough in America to justify action by the Fed (which hasn't happened yet), it is a question of avoiding mistakes.

ECONOMIST: Heading for meltdown? | The