Today it was announced that banks foreclosed on 288,345 houses in the past three months, the highest amount of foreclosures in any three-month period since 2006. It’s estimated that 1.2 million homes overall will be foreclosed in 2010. Well, gee, looks like government bailouts of the financial industry have paid off! Despite hundreds of billions [...]
Yesterday Barack Obama unveiled his new financial regulatory proposals. These include greatly expanding the scope of the Federal Reserve’s regulatory duties, creating a government agency to “protect consumers” from the financial industry, and increase government control over many investment and financial outlets. The first problem with this proposal is that it completely disregards how this [...]
The philosophy of competition has taken a backseat to government interference. In the recent cases of Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and Fannie Mae, among others, it was the government, not the marketplace, that determined whether the companies were fit to fail or survive. Traditionally, businesses are required to adjust to the harshest of circumstances if [...]
It now appears that General Motors might accept bankruptcy as a solution, after all. New CEO Fritz Henderson says, “If it’s required, that’s what we’ll do.” Oh, great. After giving GM and Chrysler $17.4 billion in taxpayer dollars with a likely promise of more, this is an unexpected and somewhat pleasing turn of events. GM [...]
Antitrust laws have gone increasingly unquestioned since they were created in 1890 by the Sherman Antitrust Act. It is said that “monopoly power” leads to restrictive trade, higher prices, and decreased competition. While this statement certainly has truth, very few people understand it and the issue most definitely is not solved through the antitrust laws [...]
The issue of credit is so intertwined with our current economic system, it is critical that it be researched, discussed, and brought to the light of the public. What is credit? Webster defines it as the “reliance on the truth or reality of something”. Simple enough. The Federal Reserve controls the supply and creation of [...]
