The U.S. Treasury Department has invested $50 billion in the General Motors bailout and now owns 26.5 percent of GM stock, about 200 million shares and more than one-fourth of the company. GM was happy to get the taxpayer dough but now wants the government to sell its stock. Trouble is, the government won’t…
Read More »
Last week, Moody’s cut Greece’s credit rating to the lowest level on its scale, citing risk of default despite the recent write-off deal. Moody’s said the rating decision was “prompted by the recently announced debt exchange proposals for Greece, which imply expected losses to investors in excess of 70%.” The sovereign debt crisis in…
Read More »
In a NBER working paper, Martin Feldstein argues that the Euro “should now be recognized as an experiment that has led to the sovereign debt crisis in several countries, the fragile condition of major European banks, the high levels of unemployment, and the large trade deficits that now exist in most Eurozone countries.” The…
Read More »
The Daily Show with Jon StewartGet More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook As it has come to light, from August 2007 to April of 2010 the Fed loaned out over $7.7 trillion to troubled banks. A Bloomberg report reveals that the U.S. government made these secret bailouts…
Read More »
Brent Budowsky of The Hill has called for Cong. Ron Paul to hold hearings before the subcommittee he chairs on the news of secret Federal Reserve bailouts of the the biggest banks. The news comes from an article by Bob Ivry, Bradley Keoun and Phil Kuntz at Bloomberg Markets Magazine that the Federal Reserve…
Read More »
In “Ex-Solyndra Staff Eligible For TAA Federal Aid; Packages Worth Average $13,000 Each,” Sean Higgins at Investor’s Business Daily reports that after the Obama-acclaimed, model “green energy” firm scammed a half billion dollars from taxpayers through bankruptcy, the White House has now approved even more corporate welfare for those involved: The Labor Department today…
Read More »
Recently, I posted about Adam Smith’s fiscal principle: “What is prudence in the conduct of every private family, can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom.” In light of this rule, it is important to consider whether or not the state should bail out the heavily indebted poor. Considering hard cases such…
Read More »
The market is a yo-yo following the S&P downgrade – investors are searching for stability amid the policy flux created by the current Congress and Administration. Businesses and investors are struggling to create and sustain stable and accurate expectations as to the rules they are likely to face in the future. Steve Horowitz gives…
Read More »
In his article in the Summer 2011 issue of The Independent Review, “The Dilemma of Bailouts,” economist Roy C. Smith (New York University) examines why despite its prohibition of taxpayer-funded bailouts, the Dodd-Frank Act has left the financial system exposed to meltdowns and promotes the shifting of risk from large “systemically important” financial firms…
Read More »
What is the hidden cost that Americans are paying to have the U.S. federal government spend so much money? To answer that question, let’s take a closer look at when U.S. federal government spending really went out of control. Here, if we track the U.S. federal government’s spending [1] per U.S. household against median…
Read More »
 |
 |
 |