Now that the federal government has decided to bail out homeowners in trouble, with mortgage loans up to $729,000, that raises some questions that ought to be asked, but are seldom being asked.
Since the average American never took out a mortgage loan as big as seven hundred grand-- for...
They say talk is cheap. But in fact it can be devastatingly expensive. Among the generation of Germans who were enthralled by Hitler's eloquence, millions paid with their lives and their children's lives for empowering this demagogue to lead them to ruin and infamy.
Germany before Hitler was one of the...
Someone once said that Senator Hubert Humphrey, liberal icon of an earlier generation, had more solutions than there were problems.
Senator Humphrey was not unique in that respect. In fact, our present economic crisis has developed out of politicians providing solutions to problems that did not exist-- and, as...
As if it is not enough that they have been decimated by the Democrats in the past couple of elections, the Republican survivors are now turning their guns on each other.
At the heart of these internal battles have been attacks on Rush Limbaugh by Republicans who imagine themselves to...
Someone once said that, for every rookie you have on your starting team in the National Football League, you will lose a game. Somewhere, at some time during the season, a rookie will make a mistake that will cost you a game.
We now have a rookie President of the United...
Death threats to executives at AIG, because of the bonuses they received, are one more sign of the utter degeneration of politics in our time.
Congressman Barney Frank has threatened to summon these executives before his committee and force them to reveal their home addresses-- which would of course...
From time to time, readers ask me what books have made the biggest difference in my life. I am not sure how to answer that question because the books that happened to set me off in a particular direction at a particular time may have no profound or valuable message...
Random thoughts on the passing scene:
I am so old that I can remember when music was musical.
Now that the federal government says that it will stand behind the warranties on General Motors' automobiles, does that make you more likely or less likely to buy a car from GM?...
Words are not the only things that enable political rhetoric to magically transform reality. Numbers can be used just as creatively-- and many voters are even more gullible about statistics than they are about words, apparently because statistics seem more objective.
The latest Congressional crusade is to clamp down on small...
China is the largest foreign holder of U.S. government bonds. But, instead of buying more of those bonds as our skyrocketing national debt leads to more bonds being issued, China has been selling some of its U.S. government bonds this year.
The Chinese are no fools. They know that all...
In the spirit of bipartisanship, my newest book-- "The Housing Boom and Bust"-- shows how both Democrats and Republicans ruined both the housing markets and the financial markets.
Like so many disasters, the current economic crisis grew out of policies based on good intentions and mushy thinking.
For...
It used to be said that self-preservation is the first law of nature. But much of what has been happening in recent times in the United States, and in Western civilization in general, suggests that survival is taking a back seat to the shibboleths of political correctness.
We have...
Much as I hate to be the bearer of bad news, I must report the shocking facts: Medical care is medical care. Nothing more and nothing less.
This may not seem like a breakthrough on the frontiers of knowledge. But it completely contradicts what is being said by many of...
While the rest of us may be worried about violent Mexican drug gangs on our border, or about terrorists who are going to be released from Guantanamo, the Director of Homeland Security is worried about "right-wing extremists."
Just who are these right-wing extremists?
According to an official document of the...
While President Barack Obama has, in one sense, tipped his hand by saying that he wants judges with "empathy" for certain groups, he has in a more fundamental sense concealed the real goal -- getting judges who will ratify an ever-expanding scope of the power of the federal government and...
There is a reason why the statue of Justice wears a blindfold. There are things that courts are not supposed to see or recognize when making their decisions-- the race you belong to, whether you are rich or poor, and other personal things that could bias decisions by judges and...
The great Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes is not the kind of justice who would have been appointed under President Barack Obama's criterion of "empathy" for certain groups.
Like most people, Justice Holmes had empathy for some and antipathy for others, but his votes on the Supreme Court...
Justice David Souter's retirement from the Supreme Court presents President Barack Obama with his first opportunity to appoint someone to the High Court. People who are speculating about whether the next nominee will be a woman, a Hispanic or whatever, are missing the point.
That we are discussing...
The media have an obvious vested interest in constantly urging that cameras be allowed in more places where governmental decisions are being made, including the Supreme Court of the United States. Like so many things that are said to be good for the public, this is something that would be...
After virtually every disaster created by Beltway politicians you can hear the sound of feet scurrying for cover in Washington, see fingers pointing in every direction away from Washington, and watch all sorts of scapegoats hauled up before Congressional committees to be denounced on television for the disasters created by...
One of the many signs of the degeneration of our times is how many serious, even life-and-death, issues are approached as talking points in a game of verbal fencing. Nothing illustrates this more than the fatuous, and even childish, controversy about "torturing" captured terrorists.
People's actions often make far...
The other day I sought a respite from current events by re-reading some of the writings of 18th century British statesman Edmund Burke. But it was not nearly as big an escape as I had thought it would be.
When Burke wrote of his apprehension about "new power in new...
