More government regulation is not the answer to economic problems but instead makes the situation much worse and prolongs the trouble, a new study reports. That means the mass fear whipped up by the media in recent weeks could have dire, long-lasting consequences if we don’t reverse course.

Mike D’Virgilio of The Culture Project notes on that organization’s blog that a new study from UCLA argues that President Franklin Roosevelt’s regulatory policies did not cure the economic depression of the 1930s but actually prolonged it by seven years.

This is immensely important for people to understand today, as the federal government responds to the housing crisis it originally caused by attempting to implement a vast array of further regulations on the financial sector that would constitute nearly a government takeover of the economy.

In addition, D’Virgilio notes that the pressure for further regulations could rise much farther:

This is incredibly important to know seeing as how in a couple weeks we may be seeing all three branches of our federal government controlled by Democrats of the extreme left who believe government intervention is always the answer. As Senator Obama said recently, he wants to “make government cool again.” The Democrat mantra about the financial crisis is that it’s basically free markets run amuck. In their upside down, Alice in Wonderland world that may be true, but in reality it is government intervention in the markets that precipitated the problem (see Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac).

Read Mike’s article here, and read a summary of the UCLA report here.