By David Boaz
In the New York Times, Floyd Norris reminds us: The 1980 presidential election was fought by a Democratic incumbent weakened by a poor economy amid worries that the United States had lost its ability to compete in the world. Gold prices had risen to unprecedented levels as the election approached, and the Republican nominee hinted [...]
The Case for Gold — Again is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
By David Boaz
Some people might have been surprised to read in Sunday’s New York Times magazine that I believed “that all that easy money from China helped make the housing bubble much bigger …
Chinese Currency and the U.S. Financial Crisis is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
By David Boaz
Only days after the president declared, “No more bailouts, no more handouts,” I see that Arlo Guthrie is touring the South in February and March. What’s the connection? If you have the good fortune to see him, be sure to ask for “I’m Changing My Name to Fannie Mae.” That 2008 song was itself a new [...]
Arlo Sings Bailouts is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
By Marian L. Tupy
Daniel Hannan’s post on the establishment of the European Credit Rating Agency makes some good points. The recent downgrade of a number of European countries is a consequence of low …
EU Credit Rating Agency Hoax is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
By Michael F. Cannon
From the Los Angeles Times.
It works on so many levels.
Headline of the Week: “Consumer Chief Richard Cordray Promises Not to Abuse His Power” is a post from Cato @ Liberty – …
Headline of the Week: “Consumer Chief Richard Cordray Promises Not to Abuse His Power” is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
By David Boaz
Great article in the Sunday Washington Post by James Grant on the depression of 1920-21 and how after President Warren G. Harding’s response, “the unemployment rate fell from 15.6 percent to 9 percent (on its way to 3.2 percent in 1923), while constant-dollar output leapt by 16 percent. After which the 1920s proverbially roared.” And [...]
How to End a Depression is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
By Mark A. Calabria
One would think that after a housing boom driven by cheap credit, we would have heard the end of the “minorities charged higher rates regardless of credit” narratives. But our friends at the Economic Policy Institute continue to spin the myth that it is really race, and not credit history, that determines a borrower’s interest rate. [...]
Sorry EPI, It’s Credit, Not Race, that Drives Mortgage Pricing is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
By Mark A. Calabria
The recently released Federal Reserve White Paper on the Housing Market has received considerable attention, at least for its policy proposals. I found one of the more interesting pieces of data in the paper to be the number of mortgages with negative equity, reproduced below (Figure 3 in the Fed paper). What I found both [...]
FHA and the Foreclosures of Tomorrow is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
By Mark A. Calabria
If you’ve followed Obama’s nominations to the Federal Reserve, he’s been pretty consistent, displaying a strong preference for coastal academics or politicos. Not one of his nominations came from the private sector (or “flyover country”), despite the very clear requirements of the Federal Reserve Act. Recently released Fed transcripts reveal an interesting fact: it wasn’t [...]
It Was the Republican Banker on the Fed Board Raising Concern about Housing is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
By David Boaz
In the New Yorker, Nicholas Lemann frets over Ron Paul’s “hostility to government” in an article titled “Enemy of the State.” I wonder if Lemann, who is both a long-time writer at a great magazine and the dean of a great school of journalism, would think “Enemy of the State” was red-baiting or otherwise inappropriate [...]
The New Yorker Misunderstands Ron Paul (Again) is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
