Homines libenter quod volunt credunt
Posted in Money on May 18th, 2010
Might one argue that the Federal Reserve, in combination with various measures by the federal government to pursue easy credit policies for the past 50 years, has been an effective tool in crime fighting? I’d love to be able to parse this out empirically – but remember one reason why we have organized and other […]
Posted in Money on May 11th, 2010
In perhaps no other sector of the economy is F.A. Hayek’s Use of Knowledge in Society an apt description of the challenges facing economic actors than in the money, banking and financial sector. Very briefly, here are three reasons why the execution of monetary policy ought to be viewed with a lot more humility than […]
Posted in Money on May 4th, 2010
What would happen if the commies actually had influence in the everyday affairs of the current administration. No, seriously. As profligate as the last two Admins have been, I do not think they have crossed this line, at least not yet. Let’s address one of the points made in that “article.” Myth #1: The government […]
Posted in Money on Apr 18th, 2010
Yesterday, without examination, we posted a look at what the Fed’s balance sheet looks like today. Here is what the Fed’s Balance Sheet looked like in the summer of 1996 (click it to enlarge). Not too much “fishy” stuff – this was at the tail end of the Latin American debt crisis, the S&L Crisis […]
Posted in Money on Apr 17th, 2010
Posted in incentives, Money on Mar 10th, 2010
Did you know that the U.S. government created an agency colloquially known as “Farmer Mac?” Yep, in 1988 Congress chartered a company to do in agriculture exactly what Fannie and Freddie have done in the mortgage market. Farmer Mac, a “private” company, is “allowed” to purchase loans from agricultural lenders and then repackage them into […]
Posted in Money on Feb 10th, 2010
Last week Professor Landsburg discussed why it makes sense to eliminate taxes on capital gains. The reason is that any tax on capital is, in fact, a disguised tax on labor. The “problem” is that it (capital gains taxes) end up taxing labor differently in different time periods. I suspect that is a feature not […]
Posted in Government Gone Wild, Money on Feb 8th, 2010
Is this what Barney Frank had in mind in 2003? When Charles E. Haldeman Jr. became Freddie Mac‘s chief executive officer in August, the ailing housing-finance giant had already consumed $51 billion of government money to stay afloat. It’s likely to need even more.Freddie’s federal overseers nevertheless have instructed Mr. Haldeman to focus on something […]
Posted in Money on Dec 13th, 2009
Here. Yet, the bust in the twenties, which drove up foreclosures, did not induce a collapse of the banking system. The elements absent in the 1920s were federal deposit insurance, the “Too Big To Fail” doctrine, and federal policies to increase mortgages to higher risk homeowners. This comparison suggests that these factors combined to induce […]
Posted in Money on Sep 22nd, 2009
Only by plundering the productive parts of society. Of course the FDIC is in trouble. The problem is that banks who have sufficient capital and invested prudently and thereby have not put their depositors at risk are being asked to take care of the banks that were not so prudent. Where does that leave incentives […]
