Bailouts
August 9th, 2010 11:43 am |
by Mike Miller
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Published in
Bailouts, Big Government, congress, government spending, Liberty, Market Regulation, Money, Walter E. Williams |
Quote of the Day: “Politicians are worse than thieves. At least when thieves take your money, they don’t expect you to thank them for it.” — Walter Williams
Congressional leaders are calling the House of Representatives back for a special session. They want to hold one vote on one bill on Tuesday, and then leave for recess again. What is this bill? It’s another bailout — a $26 billion bailout of wasteful, incompetent state governments.
It’s also a pay-off to Democratic special interests like government employee unions (but please don’t think for a minute that the Republicans aren’t just as bad about this kind of thing).
This bill has already passed the Senate, but it isn’t necessarily certain that it can pass the House. Many House Democrats are worried about their re-election prospects, and don’t want to vote for another big spending bill. For instance, here’s what Collin Peterson (D-Minn) says . . .
“I don’t know how they’re going to pass it. I haven’t really checked with people, but there are a lot of guys who aren’t going to vote for it.”
And, according to Politico, this kind of concern is starting to be a real roadblock for the Democratic spending orgy . . .
“Their fiscal-policy meltdown included the unprecedented failure to consider an annual budget resolution in its usual form and the approval of only two of the scheduled 12 appropriations bills prior to the August recess.”
This means we have a real chance to defeat this bailout bill, but only if we register our disapproval now. Make Congress nervous about passing another bailout this close to the election. Send a letter to Congress using our No Bailouts campaign.
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July 15th, 2010 10:27 pm |
by Mike Miller
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Published in
Bailouts, Big Government, Economics, government spending, jobs, Money, Obama, Politics |
by John Browne, Senior Market Strategist, Euro Pacific Capital
Despite several quarters of rising GDP, and the upbeat exertions of Administration spokespeople, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) has yet to announce the recession is over. Their reluctance is well-founded. It is beginning to dawn on even the more optimistic analysts that the tepid growth we have seen over the past three quarters is only an interlude in an otherwise grave and prolonged recession. Moreover, the respite will cost dearly as the United States has racked up a generation worth of debt for dubious benefit.
The paltry number of new jobs currently being created still fall far short of the 375,000 per month needed to offset the 125,000 new entrants to the job market due to population growth and to erode the 8 million people laid off in the past year alone. Meanwhile, house prices continue to fall and credit continues to contract. With retail sales dropping in June and the Leading Economic Index (LEI) standing at minus 7.7 per cent, it should be clear that the US economy is heading back towards recession, following a temporary distortion created by some $1.3 trillion in federal stimulus. In short, the stimulus has failed.
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July 15th, 2010 3:57 pm |
by Mike Miller
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Published in
Bailouts, Big Government, Economics, Election, government spending, Money, Politics |
According to ABC News:
As the midterm election season approaches, new road signs are popping up everywhere – millions of dollars worth of signs touting “The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act” and reminding passers-by that the program is “Putting America Back to Work.”
On the road leading to Dulles Airport outside Washington, DC there’s a 10′ x 11′ road sign touting a runway improvement project funded by the federal stimulus. The project cost nearly $15 million and has created 17 jobs, according to recovery.gov.
However, there’s another number that caught the eye of ABC News: $10,000. That’s how much money the Washington Airports Authority tells ABC News it spent to make and install the sign – a single sign – announcing that the project is “Funded by The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act” and is “Putting America Back to Work.” The money for the sign was taken out of the budget for the runway improvement project.
Continue article at ABCnews.com.
July 13th, 2010 12:26 pm |
by Mike Miller
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Published in
Activism, Bailouts, Banking, Big Government, congress, Constitution, DownsizeDC.org, Health Care, War |
You may notice the trend. As the letter below indicates, more and more aspiring politicians talk about limiting government to the confines of the Constitution. But the incumbents in Congress continue to ignore the Constitution when they write and pass their bills.
One way to cure them of their cluelessness is to pressure them to pass the Enumerated Powers Act. This short, simple bill will require that all bills cite their authority under the Constitution. This requirement will be a step in the right direction of rolling back the federal government to its Constitutional limits.
We’re asking you to . . .
1. Find out if your Representative or Senator has sponsored the Enumerated Powers Act
2. Send a letter to Congress telling them to pass it
You may borrow from or copy this sample letter (include a thank you to any of your reps who are already sponsors of this legislation) . . .
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July 12th, 2010 2:46 pm |
by Mike Miller
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Published in
Activism, Bailouts, Banking, Big Government, congress, DownsizeDC.org, Economics, Federal Reserve, Market Regulation, Politics |
The Senate will vote on the Frank-Dodd financial (non)reform bill (H.R. 4173) this week and possibly as soon as today. Although it has the votes to pass, it doesn’t yet have the 60 votes needed to break a filuster.
This bill will only strangle our already-ailing economy, and will do nothing to prevent future financial collapses or bailouts. Please tell your Senators to support the filibuster and oppose Frank-Dodd through our Reduce Regulations campaign.
You may borrow or copy from this letter . . .
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July 8th, 2010 11:49 am |
by Alexander Drummond
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Published in
Bailouts, Banking, Debt, Economics, Economics/Banking/Money/Debt, Federal Reserve, Free Market, gold standard, government spending, inflation, Liberty, Money, national debt, price control, price controls, Taxes |
An interesting discussion is ongoing at Daily Kos over the merits of Keynesian economic thought.
VA Classical Liberal writes:
If John Maynard Keynes and F.A. Hayek got into a fight, who’d win?
If it was a real knock-down, drag-out brawl, my money would be on Keynes. At 6’ 6”, he’s got the size, the weight and the reach. Hayek couldn’t lay a glove on him.
But what if they were cutting heads and throwing down rhymes? Then, Keynes could have a real fight on his hands.
You can read the rest of the discussion, and comment, here.
June 30th, 2010 12:55 pm |
by Mike Miller
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Published in
Activism, Bailouts, Banking, Big Government, congress, DownsizeDC.org, Economics, law, Market Regulation, Politics, price controls |
The House and Senate are expected to vote on the final version of the fraudulent “financial reform” bill this week.
We need to defeat this bad bill, HR 4173, which is a whopping 2,319 pages long.
To achieve REAL financial reform we need to pass Ron Paul’s Free Competition in Currency Act instead. Please send a letter to Congress pushing for both of these outcomes.
You may borrow from or copy the following sample letter for this purpose . . .
In addition to supporting the “Free Competition in Currency Act” please vote NO on the big Obama-Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill, HR 4173. Ron Paul’s currency bill addresses the root causes of the financial crisis, while the regulation bill does not.
The financial crisis was caused by . . .
* The Federal Reserve keeping interest rates artificially low
* The Federal Reserve inflating the money supply to satisfy Congress’s deficit spending
* Government policies encouraging or forcing financial institutions to issue credit to undeserving people
Together, these policies caused the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the mal-investment of easy money. The result was the Great Recession.
What does the Obama-Dodd-Frank bill do to address these problems?
NOTHING!
Instead, it sets up a “Consumer Protection” agency whose regulations will conflict with other regulatory agencies:
Read More »
June 28th, 2010 10:00 pm |
by Mike Miller
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Published in
Bailouts, Banking, Big Government, Debt, Economics, Federal Reserve, government spending, inflation, Money, national debt, Peter Schiff, Politics |
by Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital and author of the new bestselling economic fable, How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes
Despite the apparent deficit-cutting solidarity that emerged from this weekend’s G-20 meeting in Toronto, it is clear that the great powers of the industrialized world have not been this philosophically estranged since the end of the Cold War. Ironically, in this new contest, the former belligerents have switched sides – the capitalists are now the socialists, and vice versa.
We now are witnessing a struggle between two camps that I playfully call the “Stimulators” and the “Austereians.” Both warn that a worldwide depression will ensue if governments now make the wrong choices: the Stimulators say the danger lies in spending too little and the Austereians from spending too much. Each side also has their own economic champion: the Stimulators follow the banner of Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, while the Austereians are forming up behind the recently reformed former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan. (It is cold comfort to witness “The Maestro” belatedly returning to the hard-money positions that characterized his earlier years.)
In a recent
Wall Street Journal editorial, Greenspan argued that the best economic stimulus would be for the world’s leading debtors (the United States, UK, Japan, Italy, et al) to rein in their budget deficits, a strategy dubbed “austerity” by the press. Greenspan explains that because lower deficits will restore confidence, diminish the threat of inflation, and allow savings to flow to private-sector investment rather than public-sector consumption, the short-term pain will lead to gains both in the mid- and long-term. Rather than redistributing a shrinking pie, this approach allows the pie to grow. Greenspan’s Austereian view has been echoed loudly in the highest policy circles of Berlin, Ottawa, Moscow, Beijing, and Canberra.
June 25th, 2010 2:51 pm |
by Mike Miller
|
Published in
Bailouts, Banking, Big Government, Debt, Economics, Federal Reserve, inflation, Liberty, Money, national debt, Politics |
by John Browne, Senior Market Strategist, Euro Pacific Capital
The global financial crisis is playing out like a slow-moving, highly predicable stage play. In the current scene, Western governments are caught between the demands of entitled welfare beneficiaries and the anxiety of bondholders who fear they will be stuck with the bill. As the crisis reaches an apex, prime ministers and presidents are forced into a Sophie’s choice between social unrest and bankruptcy. But with the “Club Med” economies set to fall like dominoes, the US Treasury market is not yet acting the role we would have anticipated.
Our argument has always been that the US benefits from its reserve-currency status, allowing it to accumulate unsustainable debts for an unusually long period without the immediate repercussions of inflation or higher borrowing costs. But this false sense of security may be setting us up for a truly monumental crash.
There is fresh evidence that time is running out for the dollar-centric global monetary order. In fact, central banks outside the US are already making swift and discrete preparation for a post-dollar era.
To begin, the People’s Bank of China has just this week decided to permit a wider trading range between the yuan and the dollar. This is the first step toward ending the infernal yuan-dollar peg. While the impetus behind this abrupt change remains a mystery, I have a sneaking suspicion that, as my colleague Neeraj Chaudhary explained in his
commentary last week, the nationwide labor strikes were a prime motivator.
June 20th, 2010 2:08 am |
by Jake Towne
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Published in
Bailouts, Big Government, Debt, government spending, Liberty |
John Callahan, the Democrat challenger in my race, recently targeted the incumbent Republican, Charlie Dent, for his vote to pass the TARP Banker Bailout in 2008. Amusingly, Callahan – along with the rest of the Establishment’s career politicians at the time – stated he would have voted FOR the Banker Bailout himself per this article. Apparently, the only difference is Dent voted for the bill after even more pork was added – for a partial list see here.
I have been emphatically against bailouts and corporatism not only since the start of my campaign last year but since they were passed in October 2008. However, the government-sponsored corporatism is still ongoing. The American people, Congress, and the President have never been told how the FED used over $2 trillion dollars during the Banker Bailout per the Bloomberg lawsuit. What few seem to realize is that even for the troubled firms that “paid back” the money is they were able to leverage these funds and profit in the marketplace at the expense of everyone else.
Another daily “bailout” that the government grants all the banks is completely unaddressed by my opponents. While the Federal Reserve has the power to create money by simply writing a check on itself, the banks also have this power, as explained in “Fractional Reserve Banking in Pictures.”
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Liberty Maven
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