Last month, the Federal Reserve announced a new lending program, the $200 billion Term Securities Lending Facility (TSLF), that reaches beyond traditional banks to lend Treasuries to major investment houses in exchange for other collateral. While who is actually borrowing from the facility, and what specifically they are posting as collateral, is secret, [...]
CEI’s John Berlau has an interesting piece in Investor’s Business Daily. While I agree that hysteria about systemic risk is being used as cover for wildly inappropriate Federal Reserve action, I don’t agree with John’s point that Bear shareholders were made worse by the deal or that their options were compromised.
In fact, Bear shareholders clearly [...]
As the Federal Reserve scrambles to extend taxpayer guarantees to reckless Wall Street lenders, Kentucky’s Sen. Jim Bunning is nailing the issue in hearings today.
Another bailout of a bank like Bear Stearns by the Federal Reserve “must not happen again,” said Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., at a hearing Thursday. “I do not like the idea [...]
The key element of the Bear Stearns bailout is a secretive government-backed loan of $29 billion to J.P. Morgan Chase. (It is for $30 billion but JP Morgan is on the hook for the first $1 billion in losses.)
Bear Stearns was clearly bankrupt, but the Federal Reserve’s loan allowed J.P. Morgan Chase to eventually offer [...]
In his economic address today, he addressed the housing markets:
Over 2 million households are at risk of foreclosure. Millions more have seen their home values plunge. Many Americans are walking away from their homes, which hurts property values for entire neighborhoods and aggravates the credit crisis. To stabilize the housing market and to help bring [...]
Question: Isn’t a weak dollar really good for exporting American goods?
Answer: Some people (a few manufacturing lobbyists and some politicians) argue that the cheap dollar improves American exports and that we should not overly worry about the dollar’s decline. That’s wrong. Improved export competitiveness from a weakened currency is not [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
In a disappointing turn, the Senate voted last night against the DeMint amendment for a moratorium on earmarks for the 2009 fiscal year. The good guys voting for the ban:
Alexander (R-TN)
Allard (R-CO)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Bayh (D-IN)
Burr (R-NC)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Clinton (D-NY)
Coburn (R-OK)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
DeMint (R-SC)
Dole (R-NC)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Feingold (D-WI)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Lieberman (ID-CT)
Martinez (R-FL)
McCain (R-AZ)
McCaskill (D-MO)
McConnell (R-KY)
Obama [...]
Chris focuses on technology, new media, finance, and trade policy at FreedomWorks.
Brendan is the Director of Federal and State Campaigns for FreedomWorks. He is the author of The Conservative Revolution: How to Win the Battle for College Campuses.
