Since October Heritage has been writing about the need for an Independent Financial Markets Commission to look into causes and remedies of the market crisis. Now, thanks to Senator Johnny Isakson, the idea has been approved by the U.S. Senate in a remarkable 92-4 vote. The independent voices, and independent …
Great question by Wall Street Journal editorial page assistant editor James Freeman today: The Obama administration wants to regulate venture capital firms to prevent systemic risks. Silicon Valley residents are scratching their heads and asking: What risks? The rest of us should ask why Washington is targeting a jewel of …
How much government meddling will our nation’s banks put up with before they start rejecting the federal government’s TARP funds? Looks like we’re starting to find out. Last week ProPublica reported that IberiaBank of Lafayette, Louisiana became the first bank to return TARP cash to the Treasury. From the bank’s …
7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals judge Richard Posner and Nobel Laureate Gary Becker weigh in on President Barack Obama’s mortgage bailout plan on their Becker-Posner blog. First up, Posner: The four measures, taken as a whole, are likely to be administratively complicated, costly, and slow, and so have very …
The House of Representatives is set to vote on a bill today that would round out the legislative authority necessary for President Barack Obama to institute his $275 billion mortgage bailout plan. Taken together the plans three main components (enabling some select borrowers to refinance their loans through Fannie Mae …
Politico reports today: It was a perfectly reasonable question, and on the surface it seemed like a perfectly reasonable answer. But when Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd went on Bloomberg TV Friday and mused about the possibility of bank nationalization, panicked investors sent the Dow plummeting a hundred points …
The federal government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program been complicated and controversial from the beginning. First sold by then Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson as a plan to buy mortgage-related assets from U.S. financial institutions,TARP quickly morphed into an incoherent slush fund. New Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has had a very similar problem …
