FreedomTalks

While I might quibble with a few of his points, I think Larry Kudlow is generally right that fears of economic catastrophe right now are overblown. He’s especially right when he says that Democrats have “adopted pessimism as their national pastime, and want us to believe we’re already in a long and deep recession.”
Now, [...]

The very astute liberal political historian Rick Perstein, whose book on Barry Goldwater is (as far as I’m concerned) the definitive history of the start of the modern conservative movement as a force in electoral politics, has a new book out on Richard Nixon. But to tell the story of Richard Nixon, he’s also got [...]

A New York assemblyman is reportedly taking issue with targeted ad services:

AFTER reading about how Internet companies like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo collect information about people online and use it for targeted advertising, one New York assemblyman said there ought to be a law.
Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky, the sponsor of a New York bill to [...]

NYU Professor Nouriel Roubini is an outspoken pessimist on the health of the financial system, and I don’t agree with all of his policy ideas.  No matter, he nails it with this explanation of the Federal Reserve/JP Morgan Chase/ Bear Stearns deal last weekend:
Claiming the Bear Stearns was not bailed out because the current shareholders [...]

Oh boy.
The government on Wednesday relaxed capital requirements at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as part of a plan to inject an additional $200 billion of financing for home loans.
…It was the third step the government has taken in recent weeks to allow Washington-based Fannie and McLean, Va.-based Freddie to shoulder larger burdens in the [...]

Another turn in the mortgage meltdown is marked by today’s announcement (ht Calculated Risk) that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s regulators are allowing them to reduce their capital reserves from 30 percent to 20 percent. The result: expanded mortgage lending by scandal-plagued, politically controlled firms into a declining real estate market with fewer assets [...]

Agribusiness welfare– from farm subsidies to the ethanol fuel mandate– is helping drive up feed and food costs throughout the supply chain.  Congressional and Bush Administration policy favors corn farmers over everyone else, and higher prices are the result of recent changes in U.S. energy (and monetary) policy.  Higher global food prices mean starvation in [...]

FreedomWorks’ best allies on the issue of personal accounts for retirement security is the student group S4. They have done a magnificent job taking their message to Congress and the presidential candidates over the past few years. I watched this group form and grow, and I have to say that there dedication to their cause [...]

Steve Chapman wonders why the presidential candidates aren’t more interested in the nation’s finances:
It’s good to know they are preparing themselves for that 3 a.m. phone call. But I’m not convinced any of them is ready for the 8 a.m. call from the budget director reporting that the deficit is raging out of control. [...]

Here is the video from last night’s Senate vote on Senator DeMint’s earmark moratorium amendment, which was defeated.