It is often claimed that the disaster was produced by deregulation. What deregulation you may ask? Well, mostly, the dismantling of Glass-Steagall. I don’t think dismantling Glass-Steagall caused the crisis, but it is undeniable that if Glass-Steagall had remained in effect, the crisis would have been far less severe, for Glass-Steagall restrained financial institutions from being too big to fail. It was the biggest institutions, the institutions too big to fail, that behaved the worst, and lost the largest proportion …
Category: economics
Mortgage Fraud, predatory borrowing:
There have been numberless highly successful prosecutions for predatory lending, even though there is no plausible evidence that predatory lending has ever happened in recent decades, nor has such evidence ever been presented in court, nor is it plausible that predatory lending could be profitable except for lenders who break the borrowers legs and arms in the event of default.
Why socialism needs killing fields
Bryan Caplan asked why socialism turned out evil and proposed three competing explanations. Volokh Conspiracy followed up, and a horde of socialists appeared out of the wood work, objecting to the premise of the question, claiming that socialism was just fine. So time to re-run my golden oldie: Why socialism needs killing fields.Â
Capital Controls
Capital controls are characteristic of third world dictatorships teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. And now America has capital controls.
How much ruin in a nation?
On the one hand, there is a lot of ruin in a nation. On the other hand, that which cannot continue, will stop. The present level of government spending is unsustainable. At what point then, do we get general collapse?
No moderate Islam, and not many moderate Muslims
How many Muslims are moderate? In the recent Iraq election, moderates gained, just barely, a plurality. Not a majority, a plurality. To govern, they will need the support of some violently immoderate people. They have a plurality because the various different kinds of extremist hate each other, splitting the extremist vote.
The Obamized future
America was the place where the future was created. All the world depended on America for progress. It ceased to be that place under Clinton, and things got worse under Bush. We cannot rebuild the two towers, we no longer have a human presence in space, and the next big thing on the internet, networked money that bypasses our legacy banking system, is coming from China, and, God-help-us, Africa. Remember that in the 1950s, we were about to settle Antarctica, …
Natural law and natural rights
Doc Zero attributes the modern idea of natural law to Hobbes. This is backwards. Hobbes originated the modern idea of facism. It was John Locke that originated the modern idea of natural rights deriving from natural law.
Physics calls out climate science
The institute of physics is arguably the most prestigious scientific institution. It has told us that climate science is not scientific, that the climategate emails are big deal. … unless the disclosed e-mails are proved to be forgeries or adaptations, worrying implications arise for the integrity of scientific research in this field and for the credibility of the scientific method as practised in this context. The CRU e-mails as published on the internet provide prima facie evidence of determined and …
socialist medicine
Hot air reviews an interesting report from Britain. Patients were left unwashed in their own filth for up to a month as nurses ignored their requests to use the toilet or change their sheets; … Wards were left filthy with blood, discarded needles and used dressings … … … Food and drink were left out of reach, forcing patients to drink water from flower vases. … The problem is that those would provide socialist medicine for the indigent, want to …