- Here’s some classic Hayek on John Kenneth Galbraith. This is probably as acerbic as I’ve ever read Hayek to be.
- Note to Obama Administration: bailouts aren’t “investment tools.” We’ve already seen the estimated cost of TARP to go up (you know, that one bill that proponents said had a good chance of paying for itself) and corporate welfare doesn’t pay off, except to the recipients and politicians who take from taxpayers.
- Barney Frank is on the ball, ready to cause his next financial meltdown.
- Obama and Democrats in Congress don’t care where the bailout money is going. I wish Cantor, Thune, et al, the greatest success, but Democrats don’t want people to know how much corporate welfare they’re handing out to cronies.
- Alan Reynolds argues that the current financial problems did not start in the US. Reynolds makes a Real Business Cycle argument, arguing that an oil shock precipitated the downturn, and that the banking and housing problems were knock-off effects as opposed to instigators. Well, okay, I should say that I’m inferring that Reynolds is making an RBC argument, as he notes simply that the price of oil spiked several months before the recession began. This, incidentally, could also feed into an Austrian argument, noting that oil prices are dollar-denominated and the policy of easy money had, as one of its effects, caused inflation, felt particularly in the energy sector.
