The Widening Safety Net
Industry concentration is not usually a problem in the free market, writes Christopher Mayer. But the banking industry is hardly free.
Financial Markets
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Argentina’s Paper-Money Mire
Grant Nülle tells the story of a nation ruined by debt, fiscal profligacy, and paper money—with the IMF and the US as the enabler.
Who Made the Fannie and Freddie Threat?
So Greenspan says that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are so big and so out of control that they represent a threat to the whole financial system. Well, asks Frank Shostak, just how does Greenspan think they got to be that way? Might it have something to do with a central bank that guarantees the life of not only these two institutions but every bank in the US?
Inflation Leads to Protectionism
The current American current account deficit, writes Stefan Karlsson,reflects dangerous policy trends.
Payday Lending: Serving the Unbanked
The Center for Responsible Lending says that payday lending is a predatory business in that it lures borrowers into a "debt trap." Mike Foley says this view is all wrong: pay-day lending provides liquidity when it is most needed, and an an opportunity to establish a positive credit history.
Are Bubbles Efficient?
Like the children of Lake Wobegon, writes Robert Blumen, many investors in the 1990s believed that stock market returns would always be above average. They were proven wrong. But Greenspan and many others advance a slightly different justification for the bubble: the efficient markets hypothesis, which argues that the current price, whatever it is and even when pump up by credit expansion, is the best of all possible worlds.
