Free Republic

The devastating wildfires around Los Angeles have caused billions of dollars of damage and left thousands of people destitute and homeless. It is fitting and proper that congress and President Trump quickly enact legislation to help them. It will be very expensive with estimates ranging up to 200 billion dollars. But the money has to come from somewhere. And there are a multitude of places to get it. And naturally congress will attach strings. Here is a starting list of the strings. It is by no means complete: The senate will immediately approve all of President Trump’s cabinet nominations. The...

A recent piece from Foreign Policy Journal’s Jeremy Hammond offers a rare analysis on how money is created in the nation’s financial system — and also why not to expect very much in the way of fiscal responsibility and spending cuts from Washington, D.C. any time soon. The issue boils down to capital requirements — how much a financial institution must hold in reserve versus how much it can lend. Say the capital requirement for a financial institution is 10 percent.Usually, one might think that means that for every dollar of capital, it can lend out 90 cents and 10...