By Arnold Kling Wall Street investment banks and mortgage bankers seem poised to get what they want in housing finance reform – at the expense of taxpayers. When firms compete for government subsidies and regulatory advantages, economists call it “rent-seeking.” As Washington considers how to replace Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae in the mortgage market,…
Heartland Institute, Steve Stanek
Inspector General Warns of Fannie and Freddie Losses
By Steve Stanek Defenders of the government-sponsored mortgage behemoths Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been boasting of big profits. Now a federal inspector general is warning of big losses. The inspector general for the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie and Freddie, reports they have been avoiding billions of dollars of potential long-…
Gary Wickert
Capitalism, Redistribution, and the Gospel
By Gary L. Wickert Gary Wickert is an author, trial lawyer and town of Cedarburg Supervisor, who lives in Cedarburg with his wife, Lisa and two sons. He can be reached at garywickert@ameritech.net. Socialists everywhere are claiming a pyrrhic victory following Pope Francis’ recent 84-page exposition on the evils of “unfettered capitalism.” President Barack Obama…
Free Articles
Steve’s Say … Gathering Treasure From Our Challenges and Failings
That night in 2008 Barack Obama got elected along with a House Majority and what ended up being a Senate majority after some shenanigans, I felt sick beyond description. I knew what was about to happen. I knew it would be ugly and I knew it was going to hurt. My wife Susan and I…
General
Should American High Schools Prepare any Students for STEM? Common Core Doesn’t Think So
By Sandra Stotsky When states adopted Common Core’s mathematics standards, they were told (among other things) that these standards would make all high school students “college- and career-ready” and strengthen the critical pipeline for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). However, with the exception of a few standards in trigonometry, the math standards end after…
Simon Parry
The true cost of Britain’s clean, green wind power experiment: Pollution on a disastrous scale
Part 1 of 2 By Simon Parry This toxic lake poisons Chinese farmers, their children and their land. It is what’s left behind after making the magnets for Britain’s latest wind turbines… and, as a special Live investigation reveals, is merely one of a multitude of environmental sins committed in the name of our new…