During his State of the Union speech, President Obama introduced a new plan to save responsible homeowner $3,000 a year on their mortgages by refinancing at historically low interest rates. Americans would be wise to be cautious, however, about the new efforts by the federal government. The federal government’s previous intervention in the market has distorted the housing market’s natural forces and postponed the economic recovery. So far, government interventions and the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have cost taxpayers $300 billion. The new plan may cost taxpayers … More

IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde has been talking up the need for greatly expanded resources to bail out ailing European economies. European nations have offered to channel about $200 billion of their own funds to themselves through the IMF (a kind of gentleman’s money-laundering to avoid restrictions in their own treaties). Lagarde wants others to add $300 billion to that kitty. The U.S. Treasury has said no, and rightly so. Replacing current euro-debt with IMF loans, no matter how rigorously structured, will only prolong the agony. The failing euro-zone economies … More

Are you a fan of Twinkies, the cream-stuffed yellow cake confection packed with sugary goodness, wrapped in a thin layer of cellophane? If so, here’s some bad news for your sweet tooth: Hostess Brands Inc., the maker of Twinkies, HoHos and other convenience store delicacies, has filed for bankruptcy just two years after emerging from its previous bankruptcy. CBS News and the AP report that Hostess—which employs 19,000 workers in 49 states—has more than $860 million in debt, faces high labor expenses, rising ingredient costs, and a decrease in sales … More

two letters answers this question. N.O. Tom Woods explains

As we’ve argued countless times, government attempts to stimulate the economy create uncertainty that often paralyzes business decisions. Don’t take our word, though. In a letter to President Roosevelt during the Great Depression, the father of Keynesianism himself, John Maynard Keynes, wrote the following: You are engaged on a double task, Recovery and Reform…. Even wise and necessary Reform may, in some respects, impede and complicate Recovery. For it will upset the confidence of the business world and weaken their existing motives to action, before you have had time to … More

The misguided federal policy to concentrate the U.S. mortgage finance industry in two huge government-sponsored entities was underscored again this morning when the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged six former Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives with misleading investors and Congress about the amount of poor-credit-quality mortgages each entity held before they were taken over by U.S. regulators in September 2008. The charges, if true, also make it clear that both Fannie and Freddie were acting as hedge funds that gambled on high-risk investments in addition to their congressionally … More

The true colors of the Occupy Wall Street movement are starting to shine through, both in actions and affiliations. The picture that is developing is one of increasing violence married with extremist affiliations that is anything but representative of the 99 percent of Americans the movement claims to stand for. On Friday night in Washington, D.C., the Occupy protests turned violent when activists marched on the city’s convention center in opposition to an annual summit held by the conservative Americans for Prosperity Foundation. Forbes reports on the conflict: Occupiers, many of … More

In the 2008 election, Senator Barack Obama reached out to young Americans with a fresh message that appealed to their dissatisfaction with the nation’s political process. He called it hope and change, and he connected with their hearts and minds with such success that he captured 66 percent of the vote of those under 30. Now, three years later, some of those young Americans have taken to the streets not in joy and exuberance but in anger and frustration. President Obama has heard their call, and he’s now appealing once again to … More

The past few years have witnessed the rise and fall of several left-leaning political fads, each touted as a response to the rise of the Tea Party Movement: the Coffee Party, One Nation, and Jon Stewart’s and Stephen Colbert’ s Rally to Restore Sanity. A month after the Wall Street occupation began, the protesters say they are just getting started. But a month is more than enough time to see that Occupy Wall Street is no Tea Party. For one thing, Wall Street occupiers call themselves the 99 percent. They … More

Protesters set up camp in New York City more than a month ago and have spread to other cities around the country, prompting many Americans to ask: What exactly do they want? The decentralized nature of the protests makes official demands difficult to come by, but the movement has released a number of positions that are fairly representative of the left-wing, anti-capitalist tenor of the protests. We decided to examine one such list of demands, and to give readers a sense of the conservative approach on the varied goals of … More