Monday, January 5, 2009

Posts Tagged with 'crisis'

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Governors ask Uncle Sam for $1 trillion

Governors of five states urged the federal government to provide $1 trillion in aid to the country's 50 states to help pay for education, welfare and infrastructure, as states struggle with steep budget deficits amid a deepening recession.

Saturday, January 3, 2009
in categories: News

Fair Weather Friends of the Market

It’s hardly a news flash that many people who are widely regarded as lions of the pro-market side have gone over to the dark side in recent months. I am not going to name any names; if you are one of the guilty parties, you know who you are; and ...

Saturday, January 3, 2009
in categories: Commentary

U.S. Treasuries Rally Most Since 1995 as Investors Seek Safety

Treasuries recorded their biggest annual gain since 1995 as falling stocks and frozen credit markets drove investors to the relative safety of U.S. government debt. Yields of all maturities touched record lows as financial firms’ losses in the credit crisis exceeded $1 trillion and policy makers made unprecedented moves to ...

Saturday, January 3, 2009
in categories: News
Barack Obama-san

Barack Obama-san

Not to spoil the party, but this is not a new idea. Keynesian "pump-priming" in a recession has often been tried, and as an economic stimulus it is overrated. The money that the government spends has to come from somewhere, which means from the private economy in higher taxes or ...

Monday, December 29, 2008
in categories: Commentary

How the Financial Crisis Was Built Into the System

There are three major problems with the events of 1913, 1944, and 1971. The first is that the Fed, the World Bank, and the IMF are allowed to create money out of nothing. This is the primary cause of global inflation. Global inflation devalues our work and our savings by ...

Monday, December 29, 2008
in categories: Commentary

Fed Refuses to Disclose Recipients of $2 Trillion in Bailout

The Federal Reserve refused a request by Bloomberg News to disclose the recipients of more than $2 trillion of emergency loans from U.S. taxpayers and the assets the central bank is accepting as collateral. Bloomberg filed suit Nov. 7 under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act requesting details about the ...

Friday, December 12, 2008
in categories: News

Treasury Bills Trade at Negative Rates as Haven Demand Surges

The Treasury sold $27 billion of three-month bills yesterday at a discount rate of 0.005 percent, the lowest since it starting auctioning the securities in 1929. The U.S. also sold $30 billion of four-week bills today at zero percent for the first time since it began selling the debt in ...

Wednesday, December 10, 2008
in categories: News

The Health Care Bailout of 2018

When Obama's proposed national system inevitably collapses under the weight of market inefficiency and bureaucratic overhead, this will merely pave the way to fully socialized single-payer health care. Health care spending now comprises one-sixth of the U.S. economy. Forcing taxpayers to pay for everyone's medical expenses would make the $700 ...

Monday, December 1, 2008
in categories: Commentary

Stop Covering Up And Kill The CRA

The Community Reinvestment Act is to blame for the financial crisis, but it so powerfully serves Democrats' interests that they'll do anything to protect it — including revising history. The CRA should be abolished, along with the government-sponsored enterprises that fueled the secondary market for subprimes.

Monday, December 1, 2008
in categories: Commentary

Fed Pledges Top $7.4 Trillion to Ease Frozen Credit

The unprecedented pledge of funds includes $2.8 trillion already tapped by financial institutions in the biggest response to an economic emergency since the New Deal of the 1930s, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The commitment dwarfs the only plan approved by lawmakers, the Treasury Department’s $700 billion Troubled Asset ...

Monday, November 24, 2008
in categories: News

Fed Defies Transparency Aim in Refusal to Disclose

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in September they would comply with congressional demands for transparency in a $700 billion bailout of the banking system. Two months later, as the Fed lends far more than that in separate rescue programs that didn't require approval by ...

Monday, November 10, 2008
in categories: News

An Open Letter to my Friends on the Left

What I ask of you my friends on the left is to not only continue to work with us to oppose this or any similar bailout, but to consider carefully whether you really want to entrust the same entity who is the predominant cause of this crisis with the power ...

Sunday, November 9, 2008
in categories: Commentary, Featured

Capitalism and the Financial Crisis

It is incorrect to say that laissez-faire or free markets are unregulated. There is ruthless regulation, but it's not by government. Take the mortgage industry. In the absence of government interference, it is unlikely that a lender would extend a mortgage to a person with a poor credit history, making ...

Wednesday, November 5, 2008
in categories: Commentary

Five Myths About the Great Depression

Far from a free-market idealist, Hoover was an ardent believer in government intervention to support incomes and employment. This is critical to understanding the origins of the Great Depression. Franklin Roosevelt didn't reverse course upon moving into the White House in 1933; he went further down the path that Hoover ...

Tuesday, November 4, 2008
in categories: Commentary, Essays

Mortgage Plan May Irk Those It Doesn’t Help

If the banks, which frequently lent irresponsibly, and many homeowners, who often borrowed irresponsibly, are getting government assistance, Mr. Lawrence says he believes sober souls like himself are also due a break. “Why am I being punished for having bought a house I could afford?” he asked. “I am beginning ...

Sunday, November 2, 2008
in categories: News