Nine banks with a total of 153 offices were seized last evening, opening today as branches of the appropriately named U.S. Bank.

“The FDIC and U.S. Bank entered into a loss-share transaction on approximately $14.4 billion of the combined purchased assets of $18.2 billion. U.S. Bank will share in the losses on the asset pools covered under the loss-share agreement. The loss-sharing arrangement is projected to maximize returns on the assets covered by keeping them in the private sector.”

Petition of the Manufacturers of Candles, Waxlights, Lamps, Candlelights, Street Lamps, Snuffers, Extinguishers, and the Producers of Oil, Tallow, Resin, Alcohol, and, Generally, of Everything Connected with Lighting

To the Members of the Chamber of Deputies.

Gentlemen:

You are on the right road. You reject abstract theories, and have little consideration for cheapness and plenty. Your chief care is the interest of the producer. You desire to protect him from foreign competition and reserve the national market for national industry.

Governments can pay their bills in three ways: taxes, debt, and inflation. The public usually recognizes the first two, for they are difficult to hide. But the third tends to go unnoticed by the public because it involves a slow and subtle reduction in the value of money, a policy usually unarticulated and complex in design.

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of John Stuart Mill’s famous essay “On Liberty.”

With the growth of Big Government over even more of our life, it is useful to remember and reflect on Mill’s warnings of the various types of tyranny that can threaten our freedom, and to emphasize more than Mill did the importance of the recognition and protection of private property rights if liberty is to be preserved.