Free Republic

    Written December 2007, this article turns out to be very prescient Pimco's Bill Gross put it like this: "What we are witnessing is essentially the breakdown of our modern day banking system." Gross is right, but he only covers a small portion of the problem. The economist Ludwig von Mises is more succinct in his analysis: There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought on by credit expansion. The question is only whether the crisis should come sooner as a result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final...

PROLOGUE & AFTERMATH - The World Economic Forum took place in Davos Switzerland last week. The global picture enabled a nice snapshot of sentiment, fault for the crisis, blame doled out, the vacuum of leadership, the perks for blunderers in a country club setting (instead of prison), and warnings on a potential situation that could spiral out of control. Amidst all the finger pointing, surprisingly little blame was given to themselves, the corporate chieftains in attendance. Let's be clear! The Davos Forum was a funeral wake, and Putin rode in on a white horse to announce there is a new...

First, the good news. Conservatives won a sweeping victory in an enormously important election the week before last. Unfortunately, it happened in England, where Boris Johnson won the race for mayor of London and Conservatives trounced Labour all across the country. Now, the bad news. Prospects for Republicans in the 2008 election here at home look grim. The political environment isn't as bad as it was in 2006 when Republicans lost both houses of Congress and a lot more. But it's close. The empirical evidence is well known. More than 80 percent of Americans believe the nation is heading in...

It was déjà vu all over again when the government released the April employment report on Friday. The latest figures show that the economy added 274,000 jobs last month, some 100,000 more than had been expected, and that 93,000 more jobs were created in February and March than had originally been reported. The numbers are surprisingly upbeat and entirely welcome. But we should remember that a year ago, in the spring of 2004, the story was much the same. Back then, after more than two years of relentlessly subpar job creation, there was a three-month surge in job gains. Then,...

<p>NEW YORK -- Massive fiscal stimulus, in the form of tax cuts, and improving business profits should lead to a long-awaited economic rebound in the second half of the year, according to 54 economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal.</p>