Fannie Mae, HIV Rates and Greenhouse Gases
Mortgage giant Fannie Mae announces a shakeup of its senior management.
A new study finds New York City’s HIV infection rate to be three times the national average.
The Brookings Institution urges the U.S. to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions unilaterally, citing the fact that America produces more carbon per capita than China or India.
More headlines: listen to the CEI Weekly Podcast.
1. BUSINESS
Mortgage giant Fannie Mae announces a shakeup of its senior management.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Center for Entrepreneurship Director John Berlau on the history behind Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac:
“Congress just got through with passing a multi-billion dollar bailout to the government-sponsored housing enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which own half of America’s mortgage debt. Fannie was created as a government agency in 1937 as part of the New Deal, and despite it and Freddie’s restructuring some 40 years ago, it still maintained government privileges and other implicit subsidies (which have now been made explicit.) Yet amazingly, despite these two government-created behemoths at the center of the housing storm, many are gaining traction arguing that the housing mess somehow shows the failure of the ‘free market.’”
2. HEALTH
A new study finds New York City’s HIV infection rate to be three times the national average.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Special Projects Counsel Hans Bader on the misguided priorities of many public health officials:
“In poor African countries like Lesotho, ‘HIV-infected children are offered exemplary treatment, while children suffering from much simpler-to-treat diseases are left untreated, sometimes to die,’ notes an AIDS researcher quoted in a post at Reason entitled ‘Too Much Money for AIDS.’ And when they do try to prevent the spread of AIDS, they do it the most expensive and ineffective ways possible, like using expensive anti-retroviral drugs, and importing condoms that have little chance of consistently reaching remote villages.”
3. ENVIRONMENT
The Brookings Institution urges the U.S. to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions unilaterally, citing the fact that America produces more carbon per capita than ChinaIndia. or
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Fellow Iain Murray responds to the “per capita” argument:
“Hold on there, bucko. Per capita ranking is all very well, but the fact is that there are a billion Chinese and a billion Indians. China actually emits more in total than us. Third and fourth on the list are Indonesia and India. The developing world is where the emissions are increasingly coming from. Why? because it helps make them rich. America putting on a hair shirt is going to do nothing to stop that process. Now, there is something called the Environmental Kuznets Curve, which suggests that the environment becomes more important in political decision-making as societies become richer, but that doesn’t appear to be affected by example. The best we can do is not to hope that the developing world will stop going up the curve, but that we can help them over the top and down the other side faster.”
Listen to the CEI Weekly Podcast here.