Only on Friday, did the Fed take two sizeable steps to reliquefy financial markets: firstly by increasing its new Term Auction Facility to $100 billion from the previous $60 billion and also by introducing another $100 billion of 28-day term special repos. The importance of the first is that the facility is not just available to primary dealers,
A quick update to my SWF piece today. As it was written a month ago the numbers have unsurprisingly not changed at all in favor of their ability to profitably perform (though, not that a good performance would change their ethical existence: they are still living off the backs of the taxpayer and private enterprise). Paul Kedrosky recently put
Maybe it thought so, when it was taking on too many risky assets over the last few years, encouraged by previous episodes of inflationary policy. The Fed wants to give that impression too, to reassure investors--and middle class pension-holders especially--spooked by the prospect of a massive sell-off of assets, and what that would mean to the
I used to think that Reagan was fiscally irresponsible as president, compared to his predecessor. But then I thought the same thing about Bush I, then Clinton, and now Bush II. But surely, after the record-setting budget deficits and the massive increases in government spending, debt, and inflation of the last seven years, whoever is elected
Thanks in part to Sarbanes-Oxley and the public education system, the US is facing a shortage of bean counters . Much has been said on this topic in recent times, and indeed, it is true. There are several explanations for this. While government has diverted resources from a variety of bean-countering activities to SOX and internal controls
Imagine my surprise yesterday when I flicked on a kitchen radio with the hope of catching some Mozart to accompany my doing the dishes, only to hear a fey British voice saying the following: I have one plea. Could you please do what is necessary to restore our faith in the corporations of business, a faith that has been so damaged in recent years?
So it has come to this. Years of spending, inflating, taxing, and redistributing has left the US economy teetering on a recession that our best and brightest — meaning the ones who created this mess — claim requires a multibillion-dollar economic-relief package to quell fears, promote confidence, and spur recovery. And, one might add, to keep
Harold Meyerson, writing in the Washington Post , calls for a new New Deal. The old one worked just fine, and current times call for some of the same medicine. Harold says it , and he’s not alone. FDR’s nanny-like visage has been showing up on left-liberal and neocon publications — web and print — by folks who don’t understand that their favorite
Richard Grasso, the former head of the New York Stock Exchange, is in the news again. Back in 2003, he was the pariah du jour , the newest emblem of corporate greed for the new decade. I wrote about him here . At the time, I defended his right to be paid the $188 million promised to him by his former employer. The sum was based on years of
The job fell to me, as it does at times, to do a radio interview. And the topic was — what else? — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the state of the banking system in the United States. While preparing for this interview, I felt an unusual sense of foreboding. Why was this, I wondered? My usual attitude going into such exchanges is one of optimism,
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.