Free Republic

Saks Fifth Avenue parent HBC said on Thursday it will acquire Neiman Marcus Group in a $2.65 billion deal combining the storied retailers. The combination will establish Saks Global, which will include Saks Fifth Avenue, Saks OFF 5TH, Neiman Marcus’ namesake department store chain and Bergdorf Goodman. “We’re thrilled to take this step in bringing together these iconic luxury names,” HBC CEO Richard Baker. said in a statement. “For years, many in the industry have anticipated this transaction and the benefits it would drive for customers, partners and employees.” “This is an exciting time in luxury retail,” Baker added, citing...

It is now consensus that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are at the heart of the systemic meltdown we are seeing in the mortgage market. They are costing taxpayers billions through their own bailouts and through the role they played in fueling an artificial mortgage boom.But eight years ago, when I testified before Congress that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's "special privileges create a serious hazard to the market, to taxpayers (and) to the economy," my criticism of these sacred financial entities was met with ridicule. At the hearing on June 21, 2000, before the House Financial Services Committee, I...

WASHINGTON — The White House officially rejected a plan that would have created a federal corporation to purchase and redevelop Louisiana homes damaged by Hurricane Katrina. U.S. Rep. Richard Baker, R-Baton Rouge, introduced legislation last year to create the Louisiana Recovery Corp. The panel would use treasury bonds to buy damaged homes on parcels to be repackaged and redeveloped. But Allan Hubbard, the chief economic adviser for President Bush, indicated in conversations with Baker on Monday that the Bush does not support the legislation, Baker said Tuesday. “It’s dead now,” said Walter Isaacson, vice chairman of the Louisiana Recovery Authority,...

...Americans had good reason for not wanting the cost of private precautions against terrorism to become a giant tax on the economy out of rational proportion to the threat. See what this has done in the sad exceptional case of the airlines: Security hassles have made flying even more of a drag while piling up costly overhead on struggling carriers. But the last thing we need is to subsidize a similar indifference to natural disasters.... You would be rightly surprised to learn that normally disputatious climate scientists are in considerable agreement about the growing destructiveness of hurricanes seen over the...