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Paulson Handcuffs Obama By Empowering Goldman Sachs

The very popular economics blog Marginal Revolution has a very rare mathematical property: The mean insightfulness of the comments left at MR is significantly larger than the median insightfulness of the actual blog posts. Discuss. Anyway, today my jaw literally dropped in awe at the following comment made by “a person”: It is becoming increasingly […]

Did the Market Call Paulson’s Bluff?

As of 10:40 AM Monday morning, the S&P 500 is down almost 1.5%. Notice how the short-term euphoria from the government’s progressively bigger interventions is more and more fleeting, as the months roll by? Investors are apparently starting to realize that Paulson and Bernanke are bluffing. They can’t undo the housing bust. All they can […]

Murphy on Scott Horton Radio Show

We will be discussing the financial mess and (presumably) the relation to an interventionist foreign policy on Monday, from about 12:15 – 1:00 pm EST. You can listen live here, or I’ll provide a link later on when it is archived.

The Government Is Not Promoting Financial Stability

My article today on LRC. A juicy excerpt: Just stop and reflect on what the government has done, even in the last few weeks. It has literally seized (the press’ word, not mine) companies tied to trillions of dollars in assets. Furthermore, these seizures were truly a “hostile takeover.” For example, the common shareholders of […]

Latest Bailout Tally: $1.8 Trillion; Ron Paul Talks Good Sense

This helpful CNBC article tallies up all the government promises to date regarding the crippled financial markets. It’s a shocking $1.8 trillion so far. Below is a very good interview Ron Paul gives to Wolf Blitzer on this mess. (HT2LRC)

Want to Feel Like God? Have Kids!

And no, I am not at all talking about being drunk with power. On the contrary, I have never felt so helpless and non-independent (which isn’t the same as dependent) as when I am being Daddy. But, the positive side is that it is much easier for me to imagine what it must have been […]

Paulson Wants $700 Billion and No Stinkin Court Oversight

This is a truly remarkable Bloomberg article outlining just how much power the single man, Henry Paulson, would achieve under the plan that–huh how bout that?–Henry Paulson invented. (HT2 Matt M.) A sample: Through his plan, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson aims to avert a credit freeze that would bring the financial system and the world’s […]

Chicago Prof: "Why Paulson Is Wrong"

Luigi Zingales makes some good points (pdf) about the Paulson Plan. (HT2MR) The best part is the conclusion: The decisions that will be made this weekend matter not just to the prospects of the U.S. economy in the year to come; they will shape the type of capitalism we will live in for the next […]