August 18, 2012 If Only They Had Listened Ryan was a voice for Fannie Mae reform while Obama opposed it. On July 27, 2000, a first-term Congressman from Wisconsin signed his name to the Housing Finance Regulatory Improvement Act. The 30-year-old legislator didn’t have much company. Of 435 Members of the House, only 12 […]
IF ONLY THEY HAD LISTENED TO PAUL RYAN IN 2000 Read More »
What North Dakota Could Teach California March 11, 2012, While one plays host to a modern-day Gold Rush, the other shuns evil fossil fuels and wallows in debt. By STEPHEN MOORE Williston, N.D. In his speech last week responding to high gas prices, President Barack Obama insisted that “we can’t just drill our way out
OIL BOOM IN NORTH DAKOTA, OIL BUST IN CALIFORNIA Read More »
FEBRUARY 7, 2012 A Fairness Quiz for the President Is it fair that some of Mr. Obama’s largest campaign contributors received federal loan guarantees? By STEPHEN MOORE President Obama has frequently justified his policies—and judged their outcomes—in terms of equity, justice and fairness. That raises an obvious question: How does our existing system—and his own
A FAIRNESS QUIZ FOR OBAMA Read More »
FEBRUARY 6, 2012 The Fed Votes No Confidence The prolonged—’emergency’—near-zero interest rate policy is harming the economy. By CHARLES SCHWAB Mr. Schwab is founder and chairman of the Charles Schwab Corporation We’re now in the 37th month of central government manipulation of the free-market system through the Federal Reserve’s near-zero interest rate policy. Is it
THE FED’S NEAR-ZERO INTEREST RATE AND ITS IMPACT Read More »
JANUARY 27, 2012 The Zero Decade The Fed doubles down to reflate the housing market. The two most powerful men in Washington have a big disagreement. No, not President Obama and Speaker John Boehner. We mean Mr. Obama and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who can’t seem to agree on the health of the U.S.
THE FEDERAL RESERVE AND THE ZERO DECADE Read More »
JANUARY 20, 2012 Why 4,300 people are suddenly out of a job. You know something’s wrong when a company like MetLife can’t find a buyer for its mortgage unit, fires 4,300 workers, and its stock rises. But such is the condition of America’s housing markets, where the risk of overregulation and litigation are so high
THE METLIFE LESSON Read More »
DECEMBER 28, 2011, 7:28 A.M. ET The Fannie and Freddie Hate Storm A dubious prosecution but it helps set the record straight. By HOLMAN W. JENKINS, JR. EXCERPT FROM THIS ARTICLE: So where ultimately do Fannie and Freddie rank amid the confluence of ridiculous subsidies, private-sector opportunism and ungovernable global capital flows that contributed to
THE FANNIE AND FREDDIE HATE STORM Read More »
DECEMBER 19, 2011 The Speaker’s defense is hurting him as much as his $1.6 million payday. Newt Gingrich’s opponents aren’t letting up in their criticism of his lucrative ties to the failed mortgage giant Freddie Mac after he resigned as House Speaker in the late 1990s. More damaging to his Presidential candidacy is that Mr.
GINGRICH OF FREDDIE MAC Read More »
DECEMBER 21, 2011 The Financial Crisis on Trial The SEC fingers the government-backed mortgage buyers, not Wall Street greed. By PETER J. WALLISON The Securities and Exchange Commission’s lawsuits against six top executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, announced last week, are a seminal event. For the first time in a government report, the
THE FINANCIAL CRISIS ON TRIAL – FANNIE AND FREDDIE Read More »
DECEMBER 12, 2011 In the U.S. mortgage crisis and the European sovereign debt crisis, bad policies subsidized bad investments. By L. GORDON CROVITZ EXCERPT FROM THIS ARTICLE: The reason prosecutors can’t prove criminal intent is that in many cases the bankers were simply trading in compliance with the regulations governing them. Art imitates life, even
FINANCIAL REGULATION: WORSE THAN A CRIME Read More »
