FreedomTalks

Senate Republicans introduced a proposal to go forward with a number of energy reforms that should’ve been instituted long ago, but, with energy prices on the rise, are especially pressing now. Here are a couple of things the bill would do, as listed in the Reuters report:
- Allow states to petition the federal government to […]

What do former senior Fed officials think of the Bear Stearns bailout? At least one is convinced it was a bad move indeed. From the WSJ:
The Federal Reserve’s rescue of Bear Stearns Cos. will come to be seen as its “worst policy mistake in a generation,” a former top Fed staffer said.
The episode will be […]

How bad are biofuels?  I’ve had my say. The Washington Post gets down and dirty:
Across the country, ethanol plants are swallowing more and more of the nation’s corn crop. This year, about a quarter of U.S. corn will go to feeding ethanol plants instead of poultry or livestock. That has helped farmers like Johnson, but […]

Looks like the Dodd credit card bill is poised to move its way through the hallowed halls of Congress. Given the topsy-turvy mortgage market, anything remotely related to the credit industry is bound to make a pretty fat target for legislators looking to prove their consumer-friendly bona fides through legislation. Not that the two are […]

Peter Swire of the Center for American Progress is urging Congress to enact technical measures that enable users to opt out of online cookies—typically invisible and unobtrusive digital trackers which send information about a user’s behavior back to their hosts. This isn’t a new thing for Swire; previously, he’s complained that current technologies used to […]

Calls for regulation almost always mean well. but Congress doesn’t tend to make minor tweaks and tiny fixes.  This AP piece in the Politico makes the point well:
If history is a guide, Congresses and presidents don’t just tackle problems. They turn them into programs, departments and new regulatory regimes. Huge buildings stand around the nation’s […]

The New York Times takes a stand: Taxes must go higher!  How bold, how tough-minded, how serious, how… utterly, utterly predictable.  The editorial is right that the candidates are all making spending promises they can’t keep, and that the budget has been mismanaged. But the solution here isn’t to make a grim face and say, […]

Via Cato’s Jerry Taylor, this wonderful bit on that oh-so-nasty corporate villain, Exxon-Mobil, from a professor of economics at Temple University:
Some presidential candidates have decided that Exxon is a symbol of what is wrong with America. Recent ads complain of Exxon’s 40 billion in profits as if Exxon is some evil entity. First of all, […]

Who’s paying for energy caps, like cap and trade, designed to address climate change?  You are.  Here’s CBO director Peter Orszag:
Under a cap-and-trade program, firms would not ultimately bear most of the costs of the allowances but instead would pass them along to their customers in the form of higher prices. Such price increases would […]

Here’s Ron Utt’s newest report on the state of the subprime slowdown:

Many of these proposals would impose substantial regulations on mortgage market partici­pants to deter future problems. While many of these regulatory efforts are well meant, implementing them would likely limit access to mortgages to only those with high incomes and existing financial assets. In […]