Free Republic

“The new rules will cover all financial institutions, including those not now covered by any pay rules because they are not receiving federal bailout money.” — Administration Seeks Increase in Oversight of Executive Pay, NY Times, March 21, 2009 [emphasis added] Under the Obama administration theory of never letting a good crisis go to waste, it looks like PBO is planning to exploit popular outrage over the AIG bonuses to impose compensation limits not merely on employees of firms receiving bailout funds, but on those of all financial institutions. This is nothing less than wage controls. And of course we...

May 17, 2007, 6:02 a.m. Politicians Set Their PricesThe Democratic Congress seems intent on reviving the worst ideas of our past. By Carrie Lukas Apparently some lessons we must relearn. One might assume our disastrous economic flirtation with socialism in the 1970s — never mind the sorry record of command-and-control economics in the former Soviet bloc — would have buried the concept of government wage- and price-controls for at least a generation. Yet this Congress appears intent on resurrecting the worst policies of the past. Price controls have superficial appeal. The average gas-price rose more than 10 percent last...