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Housing Nominee Watt Flunks Privacy And Transparency Tests
Two prerequisites for any nominee for government posts is dedication to transparency in government and a respect for the privacy of citizens. Before we get…
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Did Hensarling Force Obama’s Hand On “Recess” Appointments?
They called it a "stunt" early last week when House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) refused to allow Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)…
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Dodd-Frank’s Burden On Credit Unions Highlighted At Hearing
At a recent speech before a convention of the Credit Union National Association (CUNA), new Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) made the pitch that the Dodd-Frank…
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JOBS Act — What’s Been Implemented — Is Working; Now Implement The Rest!
CEI Research Associate Evan Woodham contributed to this post. Another round of disappointing jobs numbers released last Friday shows more than ever that massive…
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Bipartisan Dodd-Frank Derivatives Deregulation Advances In House — And Main Street Cheers
This afternoon, members of the House Agriculture Committee with strikingly different views on many issues came together to provide much need regulatory relief from the…
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What Cyprus (Initially) Got Right — Remembering The 2008 WaMu Capital “Run”
There's no shortage of criticism of the Cyprus "bail-in" -- the one-time tax the government had proposed levying on insured and uninsured depositors to rescue…
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Dallas Fed’s Fisher And CPAC’s Fishy Too-Big-To-Fail Event
If the Conservative Political Action Conference’s (CPAC) organizers wanted a speaker or panel on the causes of the financial crisis and what to do about…
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Sequester Show May Not Have Jumped The Shark, But Its Format Has Changed
Are you watching the Sequester Show? In today's Wall Street Jorunal, my friend Kim Strassel says the sequester drama has "jumped the shark," a phrase used when…
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The Real Birthday Of America’s First Entrepreneur
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Payback? Government Targets S&P And Egan-Jones, Not Moody’s Or Fitch
Why not Moody's? Why not Fitch? Of all the questions raised about the U.S. government's strange case against Standard & Poor's—a lawsuit that actually asserts that…
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The Coming Regulatory Recession?
Yesterday, the Bureau of Economic Analysis of the U.S. Department of Commerce reported the stunning news the U.S. economy actually contracted by 0.1 percent…
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SEC’s White May Be All Right, But Cordray’s CFPB Still A Constitutional Catastrophe
Today, President Obama will send to the Senate two nominations for two key financial regulatory posts. Noting that both of the nominees subject to Senate…
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Qualified Mortgage Rule Is One Of Many Dodd-Frank Boots To Drop
The first thing that should be said about today's "qualified mortgage" rule is that it is just one of many new regulations the Consumer Financial…
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Basel III Cliff May Be Averted, But Dangers Still Loom For Main Street Banks
After numerous criticisms from U.S. community banks and lawmakers of both parties, the international committee in charge of the Basel III bank capital agreement…
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GM Stock Sale Doesn’t End Damage Of Government Motors
Below is my statement released today on the government’s planned 15-month sale of its remaining General Motors stock: On Wednesday, the government announced a plan to sell its…
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Intrade Is Only The Latest CFTC Outrage
Every so often, a government agency will do something so outrageous it will shock even even everyday critics of "big government," as well as draw…
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Good Riddance! — SEC’s Schapiro Sabotaged Startup Law Supported By Obama
When President Obama appointed Mary Schapiro to head the Securities and Exchange Commission four years ago, I kept an open mind and was even cautiously optimistic.
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The Basel Cliff — Basel III’s Poisonous Recipe For The Economy
As if the "fiscal cliff," with its prospects of looming tax hikes, were not enough, big and small banks—and in turn consumers and businesses who…
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Chrysler And The Cratering Credit Rating Of Fiat
My piece yesterday in The Daily Caller, "The Real Fiat Scandal," spotlights the real threat to Chrysler's prospects in the immediate and long term: Fiat's cratering…
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Regulatory Delays May Be Responsible For Slightly Better GDP Growth
This morning, data released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis showed third-quarter growth of gross domestic product (GDP) at 2 percent. This beat expectations slightly as, according to…
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Dodd-Frank’s Democratic Dissenters — From Brian Schweitzer To Debbie Wasserman Schultz
"For some reason, some Republicans in Congress are still waging an all-out battle to delay, defund and dismantle these commonsense new rules." That was, in…
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Free Checking Nearly Extinct Thanks To Dodd-Frank; Will Credit Card Rewards Follow?
One year ago on October 1, Dodd-Frank's Durbin Amendment price controls went into effect, causing consumers to lose free checking and be soaked with other…
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Want 1990s Job Growth? Go Back To Clinton-Era Deregulation
As much as the term “Forward” was used at the Democratic National Convention this week, the speeches of Bill Clinton and, to an extent, President…
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In Free Speech Victory, SEC Lifts Gag Rule On Hedge Funds And Venture Capital
Today's proposed Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rule lifting the outdated ban on "general solicitation" by hedge funds and venture capitalists is a victory for entrepreneurs,…
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Clinton Vs. Clinton (And Obama) On Deregulation
With little success on the economic front, President Barack Obama in 2012 is embracing much of his message on the economy from 2008. And from that playbook,…
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My Fox News Interview On GM’s Losses To Taxpayers And Obama’s Auto Dealer Job Shaft
On Tuesday, I was on Fox News’ “Special Report with Bret Baier” answering Doug McKelway’s questions on the Treasury Department’s upward revision of taxpayers' losses…
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On Dodd-Frank’s Unhappy Anniversary, Main Street Suffers Most
The LIBOR rate-fixing controversy and JP Morgan's failed trades are all spun as reasons why we need Dodd-Frank, the so-called "financial reform" law that was…
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Yes, President Obama, Howard Johnson “Built” Your Favorite Motels, And Private Equity Saved Them
Over the weekend, President Obama sent a message to all American entrepreneurs and potential entrepreneurs. The message was, "Nothing special about you!" At a campaign…
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Jamie Dimon and the “Just Fine” Private Sector
It will be interesting to see how the Big Government punditocracy squares its doubling-down defense of President Obama's comments that "the private sector is…
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