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Republican presidential hopeful Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin has already flip-flopped when it comes to immigration. Once upon a time, he supported the Reaganite position which holds that immigration is a good thing and illegals should be given work permits at least. In 2006, Walker supported the McCain-Kennedy bill that would have granted a path to citizenship (nativists vilify that as amnesty) for illegals. But that was then, reported Politico, and the governor now supports curbs on legal immigration. Walker has a new apparent flip flop in the works, this one about the auto bailouts. Back in 2012, he was...

Barney Frank defends his role leading up to crisisBy Steve Urbon Standard-Times senior correspondent October 26, 2008 6:00 AM NEW BEDFORD — It's essentially a stump speech by now, as U.S. Rep. Barney Frank explains yet again what was and what wasn't his role in the nation's financial meltdown, particularly in the housing market. Ten days ago at White's of Westport before the regional Chambers of Commerce, again at a Standard-Times editorial board meeting last Thursday, and countless other times, Rep. Frank ran down the list. These were the errors, misjudgments and schemes that amounted to a "Ponzi scheme" of...

Timeline proving that the mortgage industry crisis is the Democratic socialist experiment. Another socialist experiment failed, this time a massive federal effort, imperiling the whole US banking industry. Facing this economic disaster, can an informed American people put their trust Obama’s socialist ideology to bring remedy? Will they bring in an acetylene torch to put out the fire? http://eyesandearsweekly.blogspot.com/2008/10/narrative-for-change-proven-failure-of.html

A responsible financial institution would not extend a new loan of between $17 and $40 billion to a borrower already struggling to pay back an existing multi-billion dollar loan. Yet that is just what the International Monetary Fund (IMF) did last month when it extended a new loan to the government of Ukraine. This new loan may not make much economic sense, but propping up the existing Ukrainian government serves the foreign policy agenda of the U.S. government. ?? Since the IMF receives most of its funding from the United States, it is hardly surprising that it would tailor...

NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- New York businessman and prominent Democratic fund- raiser Hassan Nemazee was indicted Monday for allegedly defrauding three banks out of $292 million in loans. Nemazee, 59 years old, was charged with aggravated identity theft and three counts of bank fraud in the indictment. Each bank fraud count carries a term of up to 30 years in prison. A lawyer for Nemazee didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Nemazee, who was involved in various presidential campaigns and once served as finance chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, was initially charged criminally in August related...

"I want to work with Congress to replace mindless austerity with smart investments that strengthen America," said President Obama in a recent speech at the Department of Homeland Security. In the making of a counter-cultural hero, in an era of failed responsibility and in an era of passing the buck, a new superstar has been found. In America, we have Elizabeth Warren, who is coming on like gangbuster as an alternative to Hillary Clinton, something I predicted a long time ago. In Europe, Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek finance minister whose un-tucked shirts worn with blue jeans have become a symbol...

If you thought the lame-duck Congress that met in December -- in which House Speaker John Boehner cut a deal with President Barack Obama to fund almost all of Obama's programs through the rest of the current fiscal year -- was a bad deal for America, wait until the next lame-duck Congress convenes after the 2016 election. That could be the "bipartisan" moment for a bailout of the federal disability program -- and perhaps Social Security with it. The very dry, very long Annual Report of the Board of Trustees of Social Security, released in July, included two crucial predictions....

resident Obama will travel to three cities this week where he will offer a preview of his January 20th State of the Union address.In Detroit on Wednesday, Obama will celebrate the end of the "auto rescue" which he claims saved one million auto industry jobs and is responsible for the resurgence of manufacturing in the United States. Obama will make no mention that his bailout of General Motors and Chrysler cost taxpayers $16 billion according to the latest Troubled Asset Relief Program Inspector General's report. On Thursday, Obama will travel to Phoenix where he will claim his administration's Home Affordable Modification Program is responsible...

On Wednesday I noted the arrival of carpetbaggers in Ukraine. (See Enter the Carpetbaggers: Ukraine's New Finance Minister a US Citizen, New Economy Minister from Lithuania). No carpetbagging mission is ever complete without at least one visit from the IMF. On Friday we learned that Ukraine will be blessed with a second visit from the IMF as its Foreign-Currency Reserves Dip Below $10 Billion. UkraineÂ’s central bank reported foreign-currency reserves at their lowest for almost a decade, raising pressure on the West to provide more financing to the country being squeezed by Russia. It also presents a dilemma for the...

What if the government is designed to perpetuate itself? What if the real levers of governmental power are pulled by agents and diplomats and bureaucrats behind the scenes? What if they stay in power no matter who is elected president or which major political party controls Congress? What if the frequent public displays of adversity between the Republicans and the Democrats are just a facade and a charade? What if both major political parties agree on the transcendental issues of our day? What if they both believe that our rights are not natural to our humanity but instead are gifts...

To understand the backstory, letÂ’s take a quick look at AIGÂ’s role in the housing bubble. Broadly speaking, AIG sells insurance, and one of its divisions (AIG Financial Products) sold a very specific type of insurance called a credit default swap. If you were a big bank and you owned a mortgage backed security (stuffed into a collateralized debt obligation, or CDO), you could buy a credit default swap against the possibility that the security would default. Then, because you owned this insurance, whatever that security might contain, be it good loans or the most toxic dreck imaginable, it was...

During the interview, Ryan addressed several issues on which conservatives have been critical of the Republican Party, from perpetuating crony capitalism to immigration. Perhaps most interesting was the congressman’s defense of votes he and fellow Republicans took in favor of TARP and the 2009 auto bailout, and his belief in the efficacy of a short-term reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank. When asked how his votes for TARP and the auto bailout comport with the populist, free market philosophy Rep. Ryan espouses in his new book, noting that he "did not enjoy" such votes, Ryan justified them on grounds of "defensive...

We’re going to touch on two topics today. I realize that not that many readers care about Greek economic policy, but sometimes other nations can teach us very important lessons. For better or worse. And in the case of Greece, the lesson is that government intervention and bureaucracy is an enemy of entrepreneurship. Probably the most amazing – and weird – example is that the Greek government wanted stool samples from entrepreneurs seeking to set up an online company (and, just to be clear, I’m not talking about furniture). We now have another example, but it’s seems more tragic than...

For ordinary consumers, the answer varies. A lot of Americans who never had insurance before have indeed been able to find health coverage AND health care, (they're two different things, after all). But a lot of Americas have lost their previous plans, and now they're having trouble finding actual doctors to treat them even under their more expensive coverage. Whether the ACA has actually helped more citizens than it's hurt has turned into a partisan war of statistics. That war will be waged for years to come. While I believe the new law will ultimately hurt more people than it...

Senate lawmakers on Wednesday approved a $10 million financial bailout for Delaware’s three gambling casinos. The Senate voted 14-5 to pass legislation to help the casinos, which say they are struggling with increased competition from neighboring states and have to share too much of their gambling revenue with the state. [...] The change would take effect in July 2015, at an estimated cost to the state of about $10 million annually. To help the casinos until then, lawmakers cobbled together a similar amount of taxpayer money, mostly from unspent funds that are supposed to be used for economic development projects....

Bailouts: Last Friday, the Obama administration quietly expanded an insurance industry bailout program that it publicly insisted never existed. In exchange, Obama wants a big political favor from insurers. Last week, the administration promised insurers it would use "other sources of funding" to protect their profits "in the unlikely event" that ObamaCare costs more than expected. The language was buried in a 435-page regulatory filing that only the industry would normally care about. But it caught the eye of the Washington Examiner's Philip Klein on Friday. The bailout story got legs this week when the Los Angeles Times followed suit,...

At the Heritage Foundation, professors Charles Calomiris and Mark Flannery provided insights on the ramifications of the U.S. government’s bank bailouts after the 2007 financial crisis. Calomiris is the Henry Kaufman Professor of Financial Institutions at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business and Flannery is the BankAmerica Eminent Scholar in Finance at the University of Florida. The major issue with Dodd-Frank, said Calomiris, was how none of these problems were adequately fixed. Regarding the promise to liquidate and not bail banks out, Calomiris said, “Unfortunately, and I think now there’s a clear consensus across the board in terms of economists...

Another politico is claiming that he got “Christied.” This time it’s Jersey City mayor, Steven Fulop, who said that after he declined to endorse the Republican governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, meetings with the governor were cancelled and money for hurricane relief dried up. I guess in this Alice-in-TV-Land world we live in, this counts as news. This comes on the heels of a federal investigation into Christie’s use of federal hurricane relief funds, which Obama is sure were used for nefarious purposes; presumably that means purposes that didn’t include electing Democrats. While Barack Obama didn’t invent the “Christie”...

Among the many legitimate criticisms of the 2008–09 Wall Street bailout was that it created a situation in which profits are private but losses are public, being borne by taxpayers who extended liberal loans and outright subsidies to various firms in order to head off total paralysis in the credit markets. Critics right and left regarded the combination of private profits and public losses as inherently objectionable — but Barack Obama and congressional Democrats apparently saw in the Wall Street bailout a model for health-insurance reform. And, surprise: Buried deep within the Affordable Care Act are not one but two...