FreedomTalks

The Chinese central bank yesterday opted to increase the banking reserve requirement to tighten credit and cool the sizzling economy after the government reported 11.3 percent growth in the second quarter. As more growth will almost certainly mean more exports, this has many U.S. policymakers even more worried about our increasing current account deficit with China. As [...]

A recent publication from scholars at the American Enterprise Institute examines the benefits of market-based approaches to environmental regulations. The authors argue that most nonmarket approaches have very high costs relative to benefits, while market-based regulations are much cheaper and more effective. From this analysis, they conclude that environmental externalities, such as pollution, are best solved by environmental taxes and [...]

The Fed recently released the minutes from its June meeting. Find them here. 
While core inflation was higher than projected, the Board expects inflationary pressures to ease in the coming weeks. This, coupled with dovish nature of Chairman Ben Bernanke’s testimony to Congress yesterday, has many analysts believing that the Fed will pause rate hikes at their next [...]

An editorial in today’s Washington Times discusses the negative effects of the Sarbanes-Oxley regulations on small businesses. The one-size-fits-all approach of Section 404, which mandates an annual internal audit in addition to the already required external audit, makes the cost of compliance disproportionately high for many small cap companies. While the SEC has long acknowledged the strain 404 puts on these firms, [...]

These days, it seems as if pork spending goes just about everywhere. Mariachi music in Nevada middle schools, a bridge to nowhere in Alaska, and thousands of other pet projects continue to fatten the federal budget deficit as Members of Congress look appeal to every special interest in their constituencies.  The latest project to be added to the list is the D.C. Metro, [...]

The controversial Sarbanes-Oxley regulations have gone global. Beginning Saturday, foreign firms listing on U.S. exchanges must comply with SOX regulations if they have more than $75 million in market capitalization. This is good news for U.S. businesses and bad news for companies such as Toyota, BP, and Sony, as applying the onerous burdens of SOX Section [...]

Amid protests from thousands of famers, laborers, and students, the U.S. and South Korea held their second round of free trade talks last week in Seoul. While the talks ended on a sour note due to disagreements over pharmaceuticals, the two economic powers did manage to agree on a time frame for phasing out tariffs. As it stands, the FTA would remove nearly 90 percent [...]

The North Carolina legislature approved a measure Tuesday that will eliminate franchise agreements between cable providers and county and municipal governments, ending the government-sanctioned monopoly cable tv providers have on video programming. Under the new provisions, any company that wishes to offer television service over phone lines or broadband internet can enter the market. This is a huge [...]

In the wake of massive criticism over FEMA’s failed response to Hurricance Katrina, the Senate Tuesday voted to overhaul the agency in hopes of staving off another emergency management debacle. The director of the new agency will now have direct access to the President, which should improve the response time and the coordination of relevant federal agencies. Additionally, the new agency [...]

In a 260-159 vote yesterday, the House approved a non-binding resolution calling for a minimum wage increase of $2.10. Among the members who symbolically expressed support for an increase were 64 Republicans. This marks the second time in under a month that House Republicans have supported a minimum wage raise. 
Here are the Republicans who voted the wrong way.