The Open Market Blog

• By: Hans Bader
• 09/28/2008

Liberal Congressional leaders have apparently reached a deal with the Bush Administration on the principal elements of a $700 billion bailout of the financial system.  What this…

• By: Hans Bader
• 09/28/2008

Washington Mutual went under this week in the nation’s biggest bank failure ever.  But not before putting out a final press release touting its devotion to…

• By: Hans Bader
• 09/27/2008

The bailout bill drafted by liberal Congressional leaders contains a massive slush fund that will benefit the fraud-ridden left-wing group ACORN, which must be removed, argues Investors…

• By: Hans Bader
• 09/23/2008

Treasury Secretary Paulson wants the American people to fork over $700 billion to bail out Wall Street, even though he admits that his…

• By: Hans Bader
• 09/20/2008

Bush is seeking $700 billion to buy "bad mortgages" in the largest bailout in history.  The proposal attempts to bail out the entire financial system, rather than individual…

• By: Hans Bader
• 09/12/2008

On the front page of the Washington Post, writer Steven Pearlstein contradicts himself by writing that mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are being…

• By: Hans Bader
• 09/11/2008

The Religious Left seeks to impose its authoritarian social agenda through lawsuits and other means.  They love speech codes, despite the fact that they are often…

• By: Hans Bader
• 09/11/2008

Public employee unions make the false claim that public employees are underpaid and undercompensated.  But the reality is just the opposite.  Not only are public employees…

• By: Hans Bader
• 09/09/2008

Right now, the federal government, at a huge cost to taxpayers of perhaps $100 billion, is bailing out the two government-backed mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac…

• By: Hans Bader
• 09/08/2008

In California, where a referendum legalized medical marijuana, the state legislature has now gone much further and passed a bill, AB 2279, that would force…

• By: Hans Bader
• 09/06/2008

When Congress authorized a taxpayer bailout of government-backed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, supporters claimed that the mere authorization of a bailout would…

• By: Hans Bader
• 09/06/2008

Congressional leaders want yet more budget-busting, deficit-expanding “stimulus” packages, using the slow economy as an excuse for proposals to bail out state governments…

• By: Hans Bader
• 09/04/2008

Inflation is now a bigger economic problem than unemployment, argues the Wall Street Journal, and is a bigger concern to voters, too.  The Fed…

• By: Hans Bader
• 09/03/2008

The Justice Department is proposing 1,000 pages of new “guidance” expanding the reach of the Americans with Disabilities Act, at an estimated cost of $23 billion…

• By: Hans Bader
• 09/03/2008

Earlier, I and Alex Harris criticized the Agriculture Department for banning a company from testing for mad cow disease.  The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals…

• By: Hans Bader
• 08/23/2008

On Friday, a divided appeals court rejected a constitutional challenge to a powerful board set up by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to regulate the accounting industry. …

• By: Hans Bader
• 08/22/2008

Today, a divided D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-to-1 to uphold a provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, over a strong dissent by Judge…

• By: Hans Bader
• 08/21/2008

American immigration law is perverse, baffling, and dysfunctional.  It keeps out energetic legal immigrants who could make America richer and smarter, while encouraging unskilled illegal…

• By: Hans Bader
• 08/21/2008

Congress gave the phone companies immunity against the billions of dollars in lawsuits brought against them for cooperating with federal antiterror surveillance programs.  The ACLU and some trial…

• By: Hans Bader
• 08/20/2008

Federal “affordable housing” and “diversity” mandates helped spawn the mortgage crisis.  Additional evidence comes from a Washington Post story, which notes that  “even late in the housing bubble, Fannie…

• By: Hans Bader
• 08/20/2008

Maryland’s government, which recently raised taxes by record amounts to pay for more government spending, welfare, and public-employee salaries, is now pleading for a federal bailout,…

• By: Hans Bader
• 08/19/2008

Ted Frank has an entertaining and disturbing column in the Washington Examiner about how a compulsive gambler blamed his medication for his irresponsibility.  A jury…

• By: Hans Bader
• 08/18/2008

Not everyone is equally likely to get AIDS, notes former World Health Organization official James Chin in “Political Correctness Undermines AIDS Fight,” an editorial in today’s Washington Examiner.   As he points out, “We…

• By: Hans Bader
• 08/15/2008

America’s corporate taxes are some of the highest in the world, punishing companies for investing in America, driving “capital overseas,” and encouraging companies to…

• By: Hans Bader
• 08/14/2008

Thumbing its nose at property rights, the Los Angeles City Council has just passed an ordinance requiring big-box stores like Home Depot to build shelters for the day-laborers…

• By: Hans Bader
• 08/14/2008

U.N. Officials were robbed at a Russian check-point in Gori, a town in Georgia that Russian troops continue to occupy in violation of the…

• By: Hans Bader
• 08/14/2008

If you’re looking for my discussion of how “college education is a waste of time,” which was excerpted on page 24 of today’s Washington Examiner, you can…

• By: Hans Bader
• 08/13/2008

In the Wall Street Journal, Philip Howard explains how kids are getting fat (and thus at risk for obesity-related diseases and death) by staying indoors rather than playing outside.  …

• By: Hans Bader
• 08/13/2008

“Just hours after Russia agreed to a French-brokered ceasefire, Russian troops followed by irregular Ossetian militias pushed deep into Georgia, seizing the strategic city…

• By: Hans Bader
• 08/13/2008

AEI Scholar Charles Murray explains that “For Most People, College Is a Waste of Time.”  His commentary, in today’s Wall Street Journal, is exactly…

• By: Hans Bader
• 08/12/2008

The Washington Post today has an editorial debunking arguments against allowing offshore oil drilling.  Texas Governor Rick Perry criticizes ethanol mandates and subsidies, which…