CEI Daily Update
Issues in the News
1. BUSINESS
Citigroup could lay off as many as 24,000 employees due to subprime and other lending losses.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Fellow Eli Lehrer on how to keep the current lending crisis in perspective:
“In recent weeks, it has become difficult to avoid news media warnings of economic calamity stemming from the subprime housing market collapse. For example, The Wall Street Journal recently warned that the subprime crisis could rival the fallout from Savings and Loan (S&L) meltdown in the 1990s and the bursting of the tech stock bubble in the early 2000s…Analyzed relative to the economy as a whole, however, the current subprime crisis appears likely to have a significantly smaller overall impact than the S&L crisis or the housing foreclosures that took place during the Great Depression.”
2. LEGAL
The American Bar Association urges the Supreme Court not to overturn a law that bans handgun ownership in Washington, D.C.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Special Projects Counsel Hans Bader on the meaning of the Second Amendment:
“The ABA argues that ‘the right’ to ‘keep and bear arms’ referred to in the Second Amendment should not be read as protecting individual rights, because it is preceded by a clause that justifies the right by speaking of the need for a ‘well-regulated militia,’ and some federal courts have relied on that language to hold that the right to bear arms is a ‘collective right’ possessed only by state militia, not an individual right possessed by citizens. But the idea that a right is limited by the justification given for it has usually been rejected by the courts, consistently so with respect to state constitutional rights ranging from freedom of speech and privacy to the right to bear arms.”
3. HEALTH
Norway’s former Prime Minister is criticized for illegally obtaining free medical care, despite no longer paying taxes in her home country.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Journalism Fellow Lene Johansen on how in a socialized health care system, some people are more “equal” than others:
“The point was that she is not eligible to receive those services since she emigrated and ceased paying taxes, just as I did. I got the letter from the Norwegian government when I emigrated, and so did she. The difference is that she makes close to $90,000 for an hour’s worth of work, while I make less than half of that a year. If I receive health care services in Norway, an insurance claim will be sent to my U.S. insurance company. When I did not have health insurance a few months back, the Norwegian government would have sent the claim to collection, trust me on this. But I am not the former prime minister, so doctors wont’ sign off on an illegal charge.”
Blog feature: For more news and analysis, updated throughout the day, visit CEI’s blog, Open Market.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
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