Robert Reich’s second myth is “Government Obstructs the Free Market.” (See my response to his first myth here.) He says that what we call the “free market” can only exist with a government enforcing rules about property, monopoly, contracts, and bankruptcy. Reich makes the case that big corporations and the super-wealthy have steered the government’s rules and their enforcement for their own benefit.
Americans’ daily lives are governed by both laws and regulations, the former enacted by Congress and the latter issued by the numerous regulatory agencies in the federal government’s executive branch. These agencies are collectively known as the administration state, the deep state, or pejoratively, “the swamp.”
When it comes to political battles and controversies there is, unfortunately, a deeply-seated human tendency to emotionally attach one’s self to political leaders and candidates, rather than to principles or policies. This tendency is especially foundational to modern democratic politics in which voters are encouraged to embrace candidates on an emotional level. Once this occurs, the specifics of a candidate’s positions and principles become secondary to the candidate’s image and personality.
In this 2014 lecture, Antiwar.com founder Justin Raimondo (1951-2019) explains how the Conservative movement had tended to side with the Palestinians in the 1940s. Even as late as 1956, National Review featured a column referring to the State of Israel as “the first racist state in modern history.” Raimondo recounts how famously conservative publisher Henry Regnery published “a whole series of books reporting on the dispossession of the Palestinian people.”
Published in The New York Sun:
Central bankers whistle ‘Dixie’ as mark-to-market losses dramatically shrink the banking system’s economic capital.
Whistling a happy tune, the Federal Reserve vice chairman for supervision, Michael Barr, recently testified to Congress that “overall, the banking system remains sound and resilient.” A more candid view of the risks would be less sanguine.
Which of the following statements is politically correct?
More than half a trillion dollars in losses. A trillion is a thousand billion. The latest from the nation’s deposit insurer, the FDIC, is “Unrealized losses on available-for-sale and held-to-maturity securities increased by $39 billion to $517 billion in the first quarter.”
The Federal Reserve’s higher for longer policy is making bank balance sheets weaker and weaker.
The Board of Trustees at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, on May 13, announced that they would be diverting the $2.3 million that the university spends on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies toward campus safety amidst protests over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
