In response to my recent essay “Obama and Hoover: Two ‘Smart’ (Stupid) Presidents”, one commenter did me the service of rehashing the old myths about the 1920s and the causes of the depression and how Herbert Hoover did little, FDR did a lot and Hoover has nothing in common with “Wonder Boy” Obama. (Coolidge...
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Florida’s new Governor Rick Scott promised to cut government and make Florida more business-friendly when he campaigned. In addition to overseeing a reduction in state spending, which I wrote about here, he also dialed back the state’s land use planning by cutting state oversight, and abolishing the agency that was the overseer. The bill...
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The Obama administration has detained the alleged Wikileaks whistleblower under torturous conditions—for almost a year, he has been subjected to solitary confinement in a windowless 6×12 cell for 23 hours a day, under constant surveillance, prevented from exercising, lacking a pillow or sheets. For the remaining hour every day, he is allowed to walk...
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In a recent piece in The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Ralph Nader bemoans President Obama’s failure to use his position and standing to advance the non-profit sector: Yet, though he rhetorically urges more volunteerism, as all presidents do, in his travels around the country, he stops most often at factories and campaign fund-raising events patronized...
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According to the Wall Street Journal’s Michael Rapoport (“Bailed-Out Banks Slip toward Failure”, 12/27/2010, p. C1), 98 U.S. financial institutions, which collectively were granted $4.2 billion in handouts under Washington’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), are in danger of going belly-up. The commercial banks imminently in peril, such as the Legacy Bank of Milwaukee...
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On November 4, an op-ed article written by Ben Bernanke, “What the Fed Did and Why: Supporting the Recovery and Sustaining Price Stability,” was published in the Washington Post. In this article, Bernanke presents an apologia for the Fed’s decision to undertake QE2, the purchase of $600 billion of longer-term U.S. government bonds during...
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It’s all over the news. “The recession is over.” The mainstream economists say so. This was the longest recession since World War II, I heard on the news (say, I thought the economy was just dandy throughout that war—oh, never mind). The end of this terrible recession into which the free market plunged us...
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The New York Times finally gets what we on the “free market “fringe” have said from the beginning (under Bush and now under Obama): Housing subsidies, easy credit, bribing banks to refinance those “under water,” and–even worse–extending “first-time homeowner” programs to the nth degree just doesn’t work! Artificial stimulation of housing caused this bubble....
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Five years ago, as the housing bubble was ramping up, affordable housing was a big issue. Today, as housing prices have fallen after the bubble burst, I may be one of the few people who thinks housing prices are still too high. [Also see the recent book, Housing America: Building Out of a Crisis.]...
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That’s what Paul Volker says in this interview. I don’t always find myself in agreement with Mr. Volker, but he’s surely got it right in his assessment of Fannie and Freddie. An excerpt: “The mortgage market now is almost a wholly owned subsidiary of the United States government. Almost all the mortgages made now...
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