By Randall Holcombe | Wednesday September 1, 2010 at 3:38 PM PDT | 3 Comments
Richard Fuld, who was CEO of Lehman Brothers when it went bankrupt in 2008, blames federal regulators for not rescuing his firm, which pushed it into bankruptcy. Since when is it the government’s job to save firms from their own mistakes and keep them out of bankruptcy? Fuld accurately notes that the federal government...
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Tags: Bailouts, Business, Corporatism, Economics, Politics, The State
By Anthony Gregory | at 2:05 PM PDT | 15 Comments
Recent data suggest that there has been a decline in illegal immigration into the United States, according to the Dallas Morning News. At the same time, “the national debate over illegal immigration grows more vigorous and polarized.” This trend is not isolated to the issue of immigration. Often, just as a real or perceived...
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Tags: Civil Liberties, Constitution, Immigration
By Robert Higgs | at 11:01 AM PDT | 4 Comments
On August 24, I posted some data and analysis on yield curves for high-grade corporate bonds since the beginning of 2008, seeking to determine whether changes in these curves are consistent with the hypothesis that the current economic crisis has given rise to regime uncertainty. If it has done so, the yield curves should...
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Tags: Economics, Free Market, Inflation, Politics, Property Rights, Regulation, Taxation, The State
By Randall Holcombe | at 7:27 AM PDT | 1 Comment
Last Spring President Obama tried to talk German Chancellor Angela Merkel into continuing massive deficit spending to support the sagging economy. Quitting now, Obama argued, would cut the recovery short and risk major economic problems. A more sluggish German economy would slow world recovery, including recovery in the U.S. Merkel’s response was that narrowing...
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Tags: Budget and Tax Policy, Economics, Europe, Germany