On the Financial Sense news hour, Jim Puplava and others talk about the disaster that our social security system is in. Of particular interest is an exchange they replay between Allan Greenspan and a completely aloof Congresswoman, Carolyn Maloni. Here’s a transcript:

The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, commonly known as Freddie Mac, has recently come under close scrutiny after it was forced to restate its earnings upwards for several years. While it might be easy to dismiss this event as insignificant since earnings and profits were higher than initially reported, these restatements point to a serious problem associated with all Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs).

I’m so grateful to Russell Roberts for bringing to my attention this fascinating lecture by Mario Vargas Llosa, given at the AEI. Llosa is a novelist and one of heroic 1,300 signers of the Hoppe Petition. The speech has its ambiguities, but who knew to what extent he was influenced by Mises?

The Wall Street Journal reports that more than 500 companies have reported deficiencies under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. In most cases, the deficiencies uncovered by costly internal control assessments were inconsequential. An auditor, whose services corporations are forced to pay for, claims the law is “first and foremost aimed at restoring investor confidence.”

At a rough reckoning, Bloomberg calculates that Ms. Carleton S. Fiorina was paid around $15 million dollars (net of options) to run Hewlett Packard for 5½ years — and then approximately $21 million to leave the job to someone hopefully more capable than she!

Bloomberg’s William Pesek says that “While last week’s meeting of the Asian Bellagio Group didn’t mark a coordinated effort to abandon the dollar, it may prove to be a watershed event for a region looking to stand alone. If there’s going to be a concerted effort to dump the dollar, it may be made within the context of this grouping.” (Thanks TL)

From the Gene Callahan Blog, the astounding success of the Hoppe Petition (1,300+ signatures) prompts this observation about the student whose comments set off this witch trial:

New York Times says: “On Social Security, 51 percent said permitting individuals to invest part of their Social Security taxes in private accounts, the centerpiece of Mr. Bush’s plan, was a bad idea... a majority of those surveyed said they would support raising the amount of income subject to Social Security payroll tax above its current ceiling of $90,000, an idea floated by Mr.