For years, a lot of libertarians and paleoconservatives have focused a lot of attention on the Federal Reserve.  Some have gone overboard, blaming the Fed on virtually every lost freedom in America.  Others have focused too hard at the wrong time; I remember one person speaking at a gun show looking pretty foolish because he [...]

As a renter in Southern California, I’m torn between the happenings in the housing market. I see some of the lower-end properties get listed low leading to bidding wars, and see the DJIA appearing to keep strength on the banks’ earning claims, but at the same time I don’t feel the trouble has worked its [...]

According to Nate Silver’s estimate, something approaching a quarter million people took part in the tea party protests that took place around the country yesterday. That seems like a large number, and maybe even the start of something big, right ? Ross Douthat thinks not, and doubts that they’ll have any more impact on the [...]

Andrew Sullivan gets it right, and wrong, at the very same time.  He scribed: The remarkable thing about today’s partisan Republicans is their capacity to forget instantly and entirely anything that went on for the past eight years. And so suddenly we are rushing toward socialism, even though by far the biggest jumps in state [...]

This just landed in my inbox: Friend – In just 24 hours, Congress will begin voting on President Obama’s budget. It’s a big test not only for President Obama, but for our entire movement. Taking just a few minutes to call Congress now could make a major impact on this crucial vote. Will you call [...]

Here’s some irony for you. Perhaps Obama, Reid and Pelosi might consider following Russia’s lead: Arkady Dvorkevich, the Kremlin’s chief economic adviser, said Russia would favour the inclusion of gold bullion in the basket-weighting of a new world currency based on Special Drawing Rights issued by the International Monetary Fund.[...] [...]Mr Dvorkevich said it was [...]

In what can only be described as yet another one of those “crossing the Rubicon” moments that we’ve seen so many of since this economic crisis began, the CEO of General Motors has resigned in response to political pressure from the President of the United States: The Obama administration asked Rick Wagoner, the chairman and [...]

So we’re supposed to trust the people who didn’t see it coming to make sure they stop their intervention before they’ve over-intervened? Fed Pres Lockhart in a speech a few hours ago in Paris is summing up well what is the growing angst in the markets that the Fed is sowing the seeds for big [...]

Just over two years ago, I offered a worst-case prediction of where this economic crisis could lead. Wait, though, it gets worse. America isn’t an empire in the conventional sense of the word, but we are an economic empire. The dollar is the currency of the world, from middle eastern oil to the reserve currencies [...]

Two weeks ago, the Dow hit a major low at 6440, closing slightly higher. This made a lot of sense to me, given the fundamentals of the economy. In fact, I nearly posted a rather snide article on CNBC “calling the bottom” that morning. But then things changed. The Dow has been on a tear [...]

Today’s New York Times brings news that the Obama Administration is set to unveil a series of unprecedented regulations: WASHINGTON — The Obama administration will call for increased oversight of executive pay at all banks, Wall Street firms and possibly other companies as part of a sweeping plan to overhaul financial regulation, government officials said. [...]

I was talking to a coworker this morning about the stock market and the Fed’s injection of $1.2T newly-printed money into the economy. I made a point that I think bears repeating: The stock market can lose value, while going up. This is the insidious nature of inflation. They’ll inject this money and nominal prices [...]

Those eeevvviiilll capitalists at AIG have been taking quite a beating. Now it’s time to spread the “wealth”: Fannie Mae plans to pay retention bonuses of at least $1 million to four key executives as part of a plan to keep hundreds of employees from leaving the government-controlled company. Rival mortgage finance company Freddie Mac [...]

This question is asked repeatedly in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged until Galt himself introduces himself to a world in crisis. In light of this new phenomenon of “Going Galt” being encouraged by Michelle Malkin, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and many others (particularly on the Right), this question deserves a serious answer. How else would it [...]

Here we go — unfortunately I have to quote this nearly in its entirety, or the error will not be quickly apparent. Noam Scheiber says “our political system isn’t ideally suited to dealing with financial and economic crises.” Ezra Klein begs to differ: Indeed, I think our political system is actually fairly well-designed for short-term [...]

Alan Greenspan is one of the most highly respected financial minds in the world. He was Chairman of the Federal Reserve under four consecutive Presidents, and was laughed at when he uttered the words “irrational exuberance” foretelling the eventual collapse of the dot-com bubble. But even if he was expected to be so by the [...]

In my post two days ago, I suggested that as many Americans as possible reduce their withholding to the minimum allowable levels. It’s a new type of tax protest, one that might actually hit the feds in the pocketbook: So here’s my suggestion. April 15th, go to your HR department and change your W-4 claimed [...]

From a NYT story about new banking regulations attached to the bailout funds (and the desire for some of these banks to now return the money): The list of demands keeps getting longer. Financial institutions that are getting government bailout funds have been told to put off evictions and modify mortgages for distressed homeowners. They [...]

My apologies to those who have already read this, but for those who haven’t this is just too good not to share. Since December 2008, the Knox e-mail to GM has been making its way to inboxes all over the world; I learned of it only yesterday when listening to Neal Boortz yesterday. Within an [...]

21 pages of paper is apparently worth $30 billion taxpayer dollars — if you are too big to fail, that is. That’s 1,428,571,428.57 bucks per page. Here’s how ABC reports the story: An AIG report to the Treasury Department last month warned that if the government didn’t come to its rescue again, its collapse would [...]