Free Republic

Turning the protester stereotype on its head, well-scrubbed, button-down conservative activists turned out at the Capitol on Friday to protest big government and the $700 billion package it produced to rescue the nation's financial sector. Signs reading "Big government failed" and "I want a get out of bail free card" were sprinkled throughout the estimated crowd of 800 gathered at the Capitol Reflecting Pool. "We want real solutions to real problems. We don't want Band-Aids," said Russ Hauptman, a Wilmington, N.C., resident and member of Americans for Prosperity(AFP), organizers of the rally. Conservative opponents of the $700 billion bailout bill...

My friends, In the last week or two, I have heard frequently from you that the current financial mess has been caused by the failures of free markets and deregulation. I have heard from you that the lust after profits, any profits, that is central to free markets is at the core of our problems. And I have heard from you that only significant government intervention into financial markets can cure these problems, perhaps once and for all. I ask of you for the next few minutes to, in the words of Oliver Cromwell, consider that you may be mistaken....

LIVE VOTE What should Congress do next now that the House has rejected the $700 billion Wall Street bailout? [ ] Renegotiate the package so it can be passed quickly. [ ] Come up with a new plan. [X] Nothing. Let the markets sort it out.

One of our favorite New Yorker cartoons has a picture of a small vendor, “Tip Top Variety,” holding a going out of business sale. In the window of the store appears a large sign, which reads, in part, “Slapped-by-the-Invisible-Hand-of-the-Marketplace-Sale.” While the cartoon can be understood as commentary on the harsh and ugly side of capitalism, it reminds us that capitalism and the market economy are based on a system of profit and loss. Imprudent decisions by business owners, whether it be the owner of “Tip Top” or the executives of Washington Mutual or Lehman Brothers, require correction. If the correction...

The Party's Over by Patrick J. Buchanan Posted 09/19/2008 ET The Crash of 2008, which is now wiping out trillions of dollars of our people's wealth, is, like the Crash of 1929, likely to mark the end of one era and the onset of another. The new era will see a more sober and much diminished America. The "Omnipower" and "Indispensable Nation" we heard about in all the hubris and braggadocio following our Cold War victory is history. Seizing on the crisis, the left says we are witnessing the failure of market economics, a failure of conservatism. This is nonsense....

The Huntsville Times reported on September 12 that, in response to the looming threat from Hurricane Ike, Alabama Governor Bob Riley declared a formal state of emergency. The governor's declaration of emergency activated the state's price-gouging law, which makes "unconscionable pricing" illegal during times of emergency. The Times quoted Riley as saying that he thinks "a threat to public health is a strong possibility due to the shortage of fuels." Hurricanes don't cause shortages, however. Price controls do. A "shortage" occurs when the amount of a good demanded exceeds the amount of a good supplied at the prevailing price. In...

Messing With Markets Again by: Lance Nation, September 11, 2008 Currently the housing market has been of particular interest to politicians and the media. For example, the Bush Administration seized control of the two mortgage giants Fannie May and Freddie Mac. This takeover is an example of government control which hinders a free market society. “Consider the fate of mortgage lenders and homeowners,” writes Llewellyn Rockwell Jr. in Market During Crisis. “The markets became wise to the fact that loose credit led to a fantastic bubble and that trillions in traded mortgages might not be serviceable in an environment of...

At the University of Chicago no man looms larger than Milton Friedman, the Nobel laureate who led the “Chicago school” of economics and who died in 2006. When the university announced plans for a $200m economics institute in May, it seemed fitting that the centre should be named after him. But a small war broke out. On June 6th more than 100 faculty members wrote to the university’s president to protest against the institute. Armed with academia’s common weapons, indignation and verbosity, they said they were all “disturbed by the ideological and disciplinary preference implied by the university’s massive support...

On YouTube network there are several good cartoons about communism from Harding College's animation department. For those who don't know, it is a Christian liberal arts college that produced several short films how the capitalist system is far better than the garbage that the marxist left keeps offering. 1. Make mine freedom 2. Working Dollars 3.what makes us tick pt 1 4.what makes us tick pt 1 5.it's everybody's buisness pt 1 6.it's everybody's buisness pt 2 7. Meet Joe, King of the workers 8.why play leap frog? 9.going places Keep in mind there is a way you can download...

Recently I saw two movies that attacked the controversial Wal-mart department store. A PBS documentary called Is Wal-Mart good for America? And Wal-Mart the high cost of low price an independent movie about Wal-mart and the Walton family. I also visited wakeupwalmart.com for more info this article is a refutation on most of the BS that appeared on the two documentaries. First of all we need to ask ourselves why "Wal-Mart is under ferocious attack by the left?" Wal-Mart delivers well on its promise of low prices to Americans. Being a resident of one of the poorest and liberal states...

LOWER THE FLAGS ALONG WALL STREET TO HALF-STAFF. Play a dirge and hang out the crepe. Market capitalism is dead. Our financial system, for all intents and purposes, has been federalized, with taxpayer-financed "backstops" stretching as far the eye can see. Bear Stearns, Freddie Mac (ticker: FRE), Fannie Mae (FNM) and their mortgage-industry brothers-in-ARMs all are beneficiaries of this corporate-welfare scheme. Other reckless lenders with sob stories almost certainly will be added to the list. What is hard to digest is that the government's "bailout" of Fannie, Freddie and the rest of the housing market has elicited barely a whimper...

Oil Woes Simplified by: Sandy Linczer, July 16, 2008 On July 15, Brian Kennedy and Dr. Bill Koetzle from the Institute for Energy Research (IER) spoke at the Heritage Foundation on America’s energy crisis. They boiled down complicated oil issues into simple fundamental issues of economics that the government seems to be ignoring. The IER opened a D.C branch a few weeks ago and is a “free market organization that believes that government needs to get out of the way when it comes to energy,” Kennedy said. A large problem with today’s energy policy is the misdirection of blame, he...

Bread and Rosy Scenarios by: Brooke Rieder, July 10, 2008 The current food shortage has no lack of scapegoats, ranging from the newfound carnivorous habits of the Chinese, to global warming. But Finance Consultant Kel Kelly sets out to debunk these and similar theories about the food crisis in the Free Market newsletter put out by the Ludwig von Mises Institute. He takes on New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, setting out to discredit Krugman’s four main causal arguments for the current food shortage, which include increased demand from China, high oil prices, bad weather, and reduced available farmland. Kelly...

Limiting speculation would push prices to fundamental level, lawmakers told. WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The price of retail gasoline could fall by half, to around $2 a gallon, within 30 days of passage of a law to limit speculation in energy-futures markets, four energy analysts told Congress on Monday. Testifying to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Michael Masters of Masters Capital Management said that the price of oil would quickly drop closer to its marginal cost of around $65 to See full story. There are two kinds of speculators in the futures ma$75 a barrel, about half the current $135....

How Neutral is the Net? by: Rachel Paulk, June 20, 2008 When net neutrality first gained national attention several years ago, the discussion focused on ensuring equality for all sites from the differing internet providers. For example, Google couldn’t pay Comcast to load quicker than Yahoo; nor could the ISPs hold any type of censoring power on the types of sites users chose to frequent. James Gattuso of the Heritage Foundation stated that “Net neutrality… is probably the most talked about and least understood issue I’ve ever come across.” He credited the mystery shrouding the subject to the changing context...

Speaking on Wall Street last night, Senator McCain of Arizona sounded more like an economic populist than a proponent of the kind of unbridled free-market capitalism promoted by many who work on the trading floors nearby. At a town hall meeting in Federal Hall, the presumptive Republican nominee for president endorsed a federal probe into speculation in the oil markets, a phenomenon that some analysts contend accounts for about a third of the escalating cost of crude. "I believe there needs to be a thorough and complete investigation of speculators to find out whether speculation has been going on and,...

  The Library of Congress > THOMAS Home > Bills, Resolutions > Search Results THIS SEARCH THIS DOCUMENT GO TO Next Hit Forward New Bills Search Prev Hit Back HomePage Hit List Best Sections Help Contents Display GPO's PDF Display Congressional Record References Bill Summary & Status Printer Friendly Display - 2,526 bytes.[Help] TRUCC Act (Introduced in Senate) S 2910 IS 110th CONGRESS 2d Session S. 2910To require brokers to disclose and pay independent truckers for any fuel surcharges received from shippers that relate to fuel costs paid for by the truckers. IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES April 24, 2008 Ms. SNOWE (for herself...

PHOENIX - Republican John McCain, reaching out to both independents and green-minded social conservatives, argues that global warming is undeniable and the country must take steps to bring it under control while adhering to free-market principles. In remarks prepared for delivery Monday at a Portland, Ore., wind turbine manufacturer, the presidential contender says expanded nuclear power must be considered to reduce carbon-fuel emissions. He also sets a goal that by 2050, the country will reduce carbon emissions to a level 60 percent below that emitted in 1990. "For all of the last century, the profit motive basically led in one...

Amid deficits, board shutting down orchestra on June 1; Pops canceled After 57 years of music-making, including a triumphant concert in New York's Carnegie Hall, the Columbus Symphony says it will shut down June 1. Out of money and unable to reach a new labor agreement with the musicians, the orchestra's board of trustees said yesterday that it is canceling the summer Picnic With the Pops and Popcorn Pops series and most likely its 2008-09 season, scheduled to begin in October. Columbus would become one of the nation's largest cities without a full-time professional orchestra. "It's a tragic event," said...

When economic stagnation gripped the country in the 1970s, I was an economics professor in my home state of Texas. Back then when I was teaching a class and needed a real-world example of how government overregulation harmed the economy and stifled innovation, I would point to any number of sectors in the economy. This was the era when making a long-distance call was a big deal. In the wake of the economic malaise of the 1970s, economists began to seriously look at deregulation as a way to enhance economic growth. Airlines, trucking, energy and telecommunications all were opened to...

Regulation Is the Wrong Answer : Mortgage market will correct itself without Washington’s help Thomas C. Patterson, Goldwater Institute Daily Email, April 09, 2008 Since 2001, the number of employees in government regulatory agencies has grown from 172,002 to 244,000. Their funding has increased 44 percent, inflation-adjusted. As a result, Americans face $30 billion more annually in regulatory costs than they did seven years ago. All told, we pay about $1.1 trillion for regulation and compliance costs, about the same as we pay in federal income taxes. In spite of its massive costs, regulation has been unable to prevent market...

Laissez-faire. It's a policy that made Starbucks vastly successful. But don't try to put that phrase on a customized Starbucks Card. The cards are supposed be personalized to reflect customers' tastes and uniqueness. They are available in a range of colors, often given as gifts and used by regular customers who prefer to prepay for their java.

Mr. Chairman, I have never been opposed to regulation, although my idea of regulation differs from that of many people in Washington. The free market and its forces of supply and demand are the most effective regulator of the private sector, and have never been known to fail absent government intervention. But piling more public sector regulation on the private sector will have a detrimental effect on the health of our financial system and sow the seeds for the next financial meltdown. What we in Washington should be discussing is increased regulation and scrutiny of public sector regulatory and oversight...

Now that the Fed and the Treasury Department have clumsily come to the rescue of the financial titans of Wall Street, it is now politically dangerous to resist similar pleas from just about everybody else. Populism is emerging as a dominant theme is this election year, and with so much largesse showered on Bear Stearns and JP Morgan Chase, politicians are demanding even more generous terms for consumers. In Washington, it seems that two wrongs apparently make a right. Another downside to corporate bailouts is that they provide the critics of free market capitalism with plenty of excuses to...

Welcome to the Common-Sense Environmentalism Issue Suite, a comprehensive resource for people who support a common-sense approach to protecting the environment. What is Common-Sense Environmentalism?Common-sense environmentalism recognizes that almost everyone today is an environmentalist. We all want a healthy, green environment for ourselves and our families. What distinguishes common-sense environmentalism from more extreme environmental activism is a commitment to fight real environmental problems rather than imagined ones and a realization that free markets are an ally rather than an enemy of environmental stewardship.Common-sense environmentalists recognize that environmental scares are frequently unsupported by sound science and are often launched to...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. tax breaks for biodiesel exporters undercut competitors in Europe and undermine trans-Atlantic trade ties, the European Union's ambassador in Washington said on Monday. "We don't really believe it's the job of U.S. taxpayers to subsidize European motorists," Ambassador John Bruton told Reuters in an interview. "We don't think it's the best use of US tax funds; we also believe it is likely to damage to European biodiesel industry," Bruton said, naming U.S. biodiesel incentives as one of the "negative developments" that threaten to cloud an otherwise strong U.S.-EU commercial relationship. The EU supports its biodiesel with...

Countering the rancour in the West against outsourcing of jobs, the chairman of IT major Wipro [Get Quote] has said India was not stealing their jobs and its businesses were moving into developed countries, which did not have enough skilled graduates to compete in the global economy. "What is of concern is how serious a shortage of technical talent is building up in the western world. Global companies are going to where not enough young boys and girls are getting into math, science and engineering. That trend is not being reversed," Azim Premji said. Premji said that as Wipro expands...

Liren, China - The snowy, fogbound fields around this village in central China do not look like a battlefield. But in recent weeks they have become a flash point in a spreading peasants' revolt against one of the key aspects of Communist Party rule: state ownership of farmland. "My ancestors bought this land" before the 1949 Communist revolution, says Cheng Zhenhai, a grizzled cotton farmer huddling close to the stove in his dimly lit one-room home, "so I have to keep it. As a peasant, I want nothing else." Mr. Cheng was one of more than 10,000 peasants in Shaanxi...

Christina Fong grew up near Purdue University, where she met many poor Indiana residents who believed strongly in the free enterprise system, even if it wasn't benefiting them very much. Then, every other summer, she would spend six weeks in her mother's native Sweden, meeting wealthy Swedes who happily supported the heavy taxes on the rich that financed that nation's expansive social welfare system. It gave the Carnegie Mellon University researcher a lifelong question to pursue: Why do people support economic systems that seem to be against their self-interest? In Sweden, many affluent residents endorse the country's lofty taxes, even...

January 1978 “Whatever Happened to Free Enterprise?” Ronald Reagan Most recently known for his bid for the 1976 Republican presidential nomination, Ronald Reagan is distinguished for his successful careers in motion pictures, broadcasting, and politics. Mr. Reagan was a player and production supervisor of television's "General Electric Theater" for eight years and hosted and acted in the "Death Valley Days" television series. For many years he owned and operated a horse breeding and cattle ranch. Elected California's 33rd governor in 1966, he was re-elected in 1970. After leaving office in early 1975, Governor Reagan began a daily radio commentary program,...

The fundamental problem is that people took out loans they could never afford. The answer, painful as it may be, is for these people to either find affordable loans or find housing they can afford – not to shift part of the bill for their rotten judgment to taxpayers and to holders of legal contracts. We acknowledge the argument that a wave of foreclosures could roil Wall Street and spur a recession. But there is no reason to assume such a downturn would be long-lived. The fundamentals of the U.S. economy remain strong, and more than 19 out of every...

Last week the Bush administration decided to "freeze" for five years the interest rates of certain types of mortgages. You've probably caught the tail end of news stories about "subprime" home loans, lots of foreclosures, etc. Never a happy moment when the bank takes the farm. So now the government has stepped in and said that, if you fall into a particular category of adjustable-rate mortgage (ARMs, in the biz) and you're worried that it's getting way too adjustable, don't worry: The Nanny State is about to readjust it well inside your comfort zone. By fiat of the Treasury secretary,...

That's very true. As America demonstrates, faith thrives in a free market. In Europe, the established church, whether formal (the Church of England) or informal (as in Catholic Italy and Spain), killed religion as surely as state ownership killed the British car industry. When the Episcopal Church degenerates into wimpsville relativist milquetoast mush, Americans go elsewhere. When the Church of England undergoes similar institutional decline, Britons give up on religion entirely. Instead of a state church, Europe believes in the state as church – the all-powerful beneficent provider of cradle-to-grave welfare. "Freedom requires religion," said Mitt Romney, and, whether or...

On Sunday the October 14th, the Times Argus published an article entitled "Scholar to bring 'Christian Left' message to Vt.", by Mel Huff. The article refers to Biblical scholar Marcus Borg, who teaches religion at Oregon State University. Professor Borg seems to be on a crusade. "We were trying to counter fundamentalist and very conservative Christianity by letting the public know there's another way of looking at this," In short, he is trying to promote the "Christian Left" as an anecdote to "counter the negative impressions of Christianity created by the Christian Right." What are those negative impressions? Borg says...

Why should so many Americans resent and distrust the very institutions that make possible our productivity, pleasure and opportunities? Given the fact that major corporations provide virtually every one of the commodities and comforts we consume, it makes no sense to feel hostile and contemptuous of the corporate organization of the contemporary economy. As I write these words – and as you read them –we all rely on the products of major companies with increasingly far flung and international operations. Leave aside for a moment the obvious example of the complex combination of brilliantly designed computer hardware and software that...

As Congress haggles over the farm bill, it is time again to consider updating the legislation. The Agriculture Adjustment Act, passed “to relieve the … national economic emergency” of the Great Depression has been the basis for most major agricultural legislation since the 1930s. The basic emphasis of each farm bill has been to raise the prices of crops and livestock in order to help farmers. Recently, President Bush has proposed changes in farm policy that are projected to reduce spending by $10 billion over the next five years. This is a step in the right direction, but it still...

The United States' relationship with the United Nations is complex. The U.S. has vast and varied national interests in every region of the world, and the U.N. and its affiliated organizations have potential utility in helping the U.S. address foreign policy priorities... Foreign Aid Does Not Promote U.S. Policies at the U.N ... -U.S. foreign assistance has not led recipients to support U.S. positions in the U.N. On the contrary, on non-consensus votes and non-consensus important votes, most recipients of U.S. assistance vote against the U.S. more often than they vote with the U.S. -Economically free countries are more likely...

"Senator Thompson’s eight-year record in the U.S. Senate demonstrates an admirable commitment to limited government and free-market principles. His record on entitlement reform and school choice is excellent, while his support for lower taxes and free trade is very good." What did the Club for Growth, a leading driver of free market reform in the US, have to say about the others? (Here is a quick rundown)

The American people, through the mechanism of the free market, are best able to reform the health- care system. A consumer-oriented system, which is user-friendly for both the apprentice electrician and the aspiring entrepreneur, is the best way to control costs, maintain or improve quality and increase accessibility. A system that will permit the average person, not their employer; that will allow the individual, not some corporate administrator; that will empower the American citizen, not some government bureaucrat, to make the common-sense choices as to what their needs and wants are and how much they are willing to pay to...

As markets went on a rollercoaster ride last week, our economy is coming close to a day of reckoning for loose credit policies being followed by the Federal Reserve Bank. Simply, foreign banks we have been relying on to buy our debt are waking up to the reality of much higher default rates than predicted, and many mortgage backed securities have been reduced to “junk” ratings. Wall Street fears the possibility of tightening credit and the tightening of America’s belts. Why, they say, “if Americans spend only what they can afford, think of the ripple effects throughout the economy!” This...

Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works and Other Half-Baked Theories Don't by John Lott (Regnery, 275 pages, $27.95) Freedomnomics is John Lott's free market retort to the wildly popular book, Freakonomics -- that pastiche of thin analysis that skims over topics as diverse as sumo wrestling, real estate rip-offs, used car prices, and children's names. In particular, Lott disputes the most explosive claim in Levitt and Dubner's work -- that Roe v. Wade was a major factor in the stunning drop in crime in the 1990s. That huge assertion, based on four pages of analysis that included the negative impact...

But what I really don't understand about the scalping brouhaha is why anyone thinks the government should be involved in deciding how much a willing buyer can pay a willing seller for tickets to a lawful entertainment event. We all take it for granted that if you're willing to pay for the privilege, you can stay at the best hotel, live in the best neighborhood, eat at the best restaurant, or hire the best lawyer. So what accounts for the heavy breathing when some fans pay a premium in order to see Daisuke Matsuzaka take the mound or watch David...

One of the most dramatic and graphic illustrations of the difference in the abundance provided by a free-market economy and the deprivation imposed by a Marxist government had its moment in the national consciousness several weeks ago. It was in a few paragraphs of a widely-reported news story, one of those “here-today, gone-tomorrow” reports that focused on Polish railway worker Jan Grzebska’s awakening from a 19-year coma, while the real lesson was given all too little prominence. While news accounts were primarily concerned with his recovery (USA Today ran it in the “offbeat news” section), the important story was revealed...

Democratic candidates did some heavy pandering to the Hispanic crowd they faced on Saturday. The Democrats fell over each other demonizing the opponents of the Senate’s failed immigration bill. The rhetoric was thick...

I'm going to make a little prediction. In a few days, Michael Moore's latest mockumentary, "Sicko," will release nationally. It is an indictment of health care in the U.S. and a paean to systems in worker paradises like Cuba. But given the notoriety and box-office success of some of Michael Moore's other agitprop fare, I predict it will be rapidly followed by the introduction of major federal legislation that will, in effect, attempt to nationalize and socialize medicine in the U.S. In my own meager effort to pre-empt this well-orchestrated plot, I would like to bust a few of the...

Dropping out of college didn't stop Bill Gates from making tons of money, but it kept him from classes where he might have learned about the beauty of spontaneous market processes. Never mind. I forgot that he attended Harvard. He might not have learned about markets after all.

At a recent press conference Sen. John Kerry was upset as he snarled, "Oil companies in America are reporting record profits. Record profits." When did profit become a dirty word?" I wish the oil executives would face the media. They could say something like: "What are you complaining about? What do you think we do with our profits? Buy fancy cars and homes? Well, we do, actually, but nearly all the money goes to looking for more oil and following environmental rules that you want us to follow. You should want us to make more profit. Anyway, we make less...

Some people hate me because I defend free markets. Once someone accosted me on a New York City street and said, "I hope you die soon." Why the hostility to commerce? What could be more benign than the freedom to trade with whomever you wish? I suspect ignorance about economics leads many to believe that when two people exchange goods and money, one wins and the other loses. If rich capitalists profit, the poor and the weak suffer. That's a myth. How many times have you paid $1 for a cup of coffee and after the clerk said, "thank you,"...

A millionaire couple accused of keeping two Indonesian women as slaves were held in jail on Thursday amid new allegations that the women's relatives were threatened and offered bribes to make the case go away. Varsha Mahender Sabhnani and her husband, Mahender Murlidhar Sabhnani, who operate a worldwide perfume business out of their Long Island home, pleaded not guilty at their arraignment on federal slavery charges. Prosecutors have called the allegations "truly a case of modern-day slavery." "The defendants operated a torture house," Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Lesko told the judge, who put the Sabhnanis' bail request on hold until...

A few weeks ago I gathered some quotes of Ronald Reagan and Hillary Clinton, on the same subject. It was a very illustrative exercise, as it allowed me to see how a conservative on one hand, and a liberal on the other, can have a different outlook on the same thing. Recently I read snippets of columns of the late economist Milton Friedman, all of which appeared in the Wall Street Journal over the years. I thought it would be interesting to do a compare and contrast between a champion of the free market versus a champion of government. And...