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Bank of America, Adam Smith and a Fee Market System
This week, Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill) made a remarkably pithy statement on the floor of the Senate that Bank of America patrons should "vote...
Memo to Obama: Push for Jobs, Don’t Shove Employers
The American Jobs Act provides yet another example of President Obama potentially snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. It proposes a punitive response...
How to Fix the Foreclosure Crisis: A Real Bailout
We need a real bailout, because the last one relied on a bad theory -- namely: horse-and-sparrow "trickle-down" economics. Why do we need a...
Consumers Be Damned: Senator Shelby, Captain Queeg and the Politics of...
Last week's Senate Banking Committee hearing on the nomination of Richard Cordray to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau featured prepared speeches that were...
Freddie and Fannie — Has Everyone Gone Postal?
Between Freddie and Fannie's latest woes and the United States Postal Service teetering on collapse, it's been a bad week or so for quasi-governmental...
Medication for Middle-Class Mortgage Mania
Everything old is new again....
Between 1634 and 1637, tulips became all the rage in Holland. The record of exactly what happened is sketchy and...
$2 a Gallon Gas, Michele Bachmann? Aim Higher.
Big city-dwellers notwithstanding, American consumers may purchase gasoline more frequently than any other item. In fact, according to a 2009 Nilson report, when it...
Zero Sum Game: The Black Box of the Congressional Budget Process
So, how do you do your household budgeting? Millions of us use QuickBooks or some variation thereof. For those who are technologically challenged (I...
The Silver Lining in the U.S. Debt Downgrade
No matter which side of the political fence or economic Continental Divide you sit on, few can deny that this was the week that...
Of Debt Ceiling Debates, Non-Denial Denials and Non-Default Defaults
In 1980, Republican presidential nominee Ronald Reagan asked the American people: "Are you better off than you were four years ago... Is America more...