The Open Market Blog

• 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…