More Bank Failures

“There will be more bank failures, but nothing compared with previous cycles, such as the savings-and-loans days,” Sheila Bair, chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), said in an interview recently after $32 billion IndyMac was seized by Bair’s organization.

Mock the Vote

There’s nothing special about 50% plus one. Truth and justice cannot be determined by a show of hands. We are not the government. Voting is not a sacrament. And as it stands today, when we’re only given a choice between two Establishment-approved candidates, voting is a joke.

Do We Need More of Keynes Now?

Keynesian ideas have never left the rooms of government and central-bank decision makers. The essence of the thinking of the most influential economists was and still is Keynesian. So various stimulus packages that are now introduced are a continuation of the same Keynesian policies we have been subjected to for many decades. The present economic crisis is the outcome of the large dose of Keynesianism we have been given over many decades.

Get Government Out of Coin Manufacture

Coin dealers and collectors are still reeling from the US Mint’s announcement that it had run out of American Eagle gold coins. But what ought to surprise every American isn’t that a government agency came up short. It’s that the US government should be making little metal discs at all. Now socialism is dead, but not when it comes to coining. So coin shortages keep breaking out, as they have ever since governments first monopolized coin making in ancient times.

The Magnificence of Disposable Diapers

For the environmentally conscious, disposable diapers are not the enemy. If anything, they are better for the environment than the reusable diapers that have been trumpeted as the diapers of choice for the progressive and the enlightened. And once again, analysis trumps intentions. So go green: put down the cloth diapers and buy that extra-large package of disposables.

The Myth that Laissez Faire Is Responsible for Our Present Crisis

The news media are in the process of creating a great new historical myth. This is the myth that our present financial crisis is the result of economic freedom and laissez-faire capitalism.

The attempt to place the blame on laissez faire is readily confirmed by a Google search under the terms “crisis + laissez faire.” On the first page of the results that come up, or in the web entries to which those results refer, statements of the following kind appear:

  • “The mortgage crisis is laissez-faire gone wrong.”

The Credit-Crunch Myth

Three economists for the Minneapolis Fed have written a paper called “Myths about the Financial Crisis of 2008.” The myths they refute: 1) Bank lending to nonfinancial corporations and individuals has declined sharply, 2) Interbank lending is essentially nonexistent, 3) Commercial paper issuance by nonfnancial corporations has declined sharply and rates have risen to unprecedented levels, and 4) Banks play a large role in channeling funds from savers to borrowers.

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