On January 3, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke gave a long speech entitled “Monetary Policy and the Housing Bubble,” in which he argued that the Fed’s low interest rate policy in the early 2000s, which he supported, was not a significant factor in the housing bubble and resultant financial collapse. His arguments are unsound, self-serving, and harmful to economic recovery and financial regulatory reform

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Bernanke, Angelides, and the Bank Tax: Part I

Dean Baker Writes the Washington Post’s Obituary Dean Baker was the first to notice that a Washington Post article on the budget deficit came from the Fiscal Times , a newly-formed “news service” funded by billionaire Peter G. Peterson, who has been using his vast fortune to try to cut back and/or privatize Social Security and Medicare for the last two decades. As Baker noted in his blog “Beat the Press,” the Post ’s New Year’s Eve article conveyed Peterson’s budget fear-mongering view, but did not mention Peterson’s funding of the Fiscal Times and the main sources cited in the article

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CEPR News, January 2010

Story from Evolution News . Excerpt: California Senate Minority Leader Dennis Hollingsworth has sent a  letter to the California Science Center (CSC) requesting documents related to the Center’s  cancellation of a screening last October of the pro-intelligent design documentary  “Darwin’s Dilemma.” The screening was sponsored by the  American Freedom Alliance (AFA), a private group that had rented the Center’s IMAX theater. Senator Hollingsworth’s letter follows  two lawsuits filed against the state government-operated Science Center charging that it violated both the First Amendment and California’s open records law in its effort to  stop the screening and then  cover up the real story behind the cancellation

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California Senate minority leader launches probe of ID censorship

January 15, 2010 (Prices Byte) By David Rosnick January 15, 2010 Falling rents continue to hold down core inflation. The consumer price index rose 0.1 percent in December, slackening from 0.4 percent in November and 0.3 percent in October.  Core inflation ticked up 0.1 percent after rising less than 0.05 percent in November.  Core inflation has run at a 1.3 percent annualized rate in the second half of 2009, down from 2.3 percent in the first half of the year.

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Inflation Slows in December

Decrying Scott Brown ‘s supposed opposition to regulatory reform, the Democrat Senate Campaign Committee and straw man factory used the World Trade Center as a backdrop to claim that Brown is a champion of “greed and corruption”. 2700 Americans died in the World Trade Center on Septermber 11, 2001.

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DSCC Ad Uses World Trade Center as Symbol of Greed, Corruption

In a recent Iain Banks novel, Transitions, characters undertook shady undercover missions on behalf of a mysterious cabal by taking a pill and blinking into an alternate reality. Perhaps President Barack Obama can do the same and doesn’t always serve as President in the same world we the people live in

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A Presidential Address From An Alternative Reality

Mark Weisbrot The Guardian Unlimited , January 15, 2010 RIGA, LATVIA – The signs of recession are more noticeable to those who live here – restaurants and coffee shops have lost most of their customers, and construction has practically ground to a halt. Emigration has soared. Latvia has set a world-historical record by losing more than 24 percent of its economy in just two years

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Latvia Shows the Damage That Far Right Economic Policy Can Do – With Support from the …

The president says please put Whats-Her-Name in Teddy’s seat for me. Remember, their best people didn’t know the Cash for Clunkers program would use up it’s first billion in six days.

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Obama on Coakley, Brown Massachusetts Special Election

Mexico Story from the Philadelphia Inquirer . (H/T Andrew) Excerpt: Abortion-rights activists dreamed of legislative victories across Mexico after its Supreme Court last year upheld a Mexico City law allowing abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Instead, the opposite has happened

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Pro-life backlash against abortion in Mexico, South Korea and China

Gateway Pundit via Big Government posted another gaffe by Martha Coakley. At this point Scott Browns Victory Strategy should be to remain silent and his opponent keep talking and putting her foot in her mouth! “You can have religious freedom but you probably shouldn’t work in the emergency room.” Democrat Martha Coakley was on with Ken Pittman from WBSM in Massachusetts today.

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Martha Coakley: “You can have religious freedom but you probably shouldn’t work in the emergency room.”

This applies to Victoria, own the more liberal states in Australia. Story here from the Herald Sun . (H/T Thoughts Out Loud ) Excerpt: Sweeping January 1 changes to the state’s reproductive laws mean that non-birth parents can now be named on birth certificates

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In Australia, non-birth parents can now be named on birth certificates

January 14, 2010 Center for Economic and Policy Research Co- Director Dean Baker released the following statement on the Obama Administration’s proposal to impose a fee on the financial institutions that received TARP funds. Today, the White House announced a proposal to impose a Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee (FCRF) on the Wall Street firms that have benefited most from the TARP program. Now that executives of the too-big-to-fail banks are again enjoying huge bonuses while the rest of the nation suffers through double-digit unemployment, the Obama Administration is taking action against the banks whose reckless actions wreaked havoc on the U.S

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CEPR Statement on President Obama’s Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee

The following ad by the League Of Conservation Voters not only misrepresents Scott Browns position on Energy and environmental issues, it completely distorts the effects and reasoning of the Cap-N-Trade legislation, which is nothing more than a money and power grab by the federal government which will most likely bankrupt this country. By the way, Both Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace also oppose this legislation… wonder if the League Of Conservation Voters are producing ads denouncing those organizations? This is what Scott Brown’s website says about his view on on Energy and environmental issues… you be the judge! Energy and Environment I support common-sense environment policy that will help to reduce pollution and preserve our precious open spaces

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More Dishonest Ads by Coakley Supporters

Now what am I supposed to do? You can read a bunch of the stories I was going to write about here in Neil Simpson’s round-up posted on Neil’s blog by Neil, (along with some other stories of interest that I missed!). What should I do instead of blogging, then

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Neil Simpson stole all of the stories that I was going to blog about

Consider this story from the Herald Sun in Australia. Excerpt: A mother found by the Family Court to be violent, untruthful, lacking moral values and responsible for the psychological and emotional abuse of her children has been given custody of them

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MUST-READ: How divorce courts destroy the lives of fathers and children

Consider this disturbing article from CNN . (H/T ECM) Excerpt: Democrat Martha Coakley dodged a pointed question Tuesday about her claim during a Massachusetts Senate debate the night before that terrorists are no longer in Afghanistan. During Monday’s debate with Republican Scott Brown, Coakley questioned why the United States still has troops in Afghanistan

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Assessing Martha Coakley’s fitness for the MA Senate seat

With the National Broadband Plan due to Congress in just over a month and the next round of broadband stimulus funding fast approachingm, the New America Foundations Open Technology Initiative has invited Jed Kolko, Associate Director and Research Fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, to discuss an important question: What is the relationship between broadband and economic development?An expert in urban and regional development as well as technology policy, Mr.

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Does Broadband Boost Economic Development?

Story from Human Events . (H/T DoublePlusUndead via ECM) Excerpt: Fact 5: Your family insurance plan — if your employer drops your coverage and you are forced to buy it on your own — will cost about $15,000 per year when the legislation is in full force in 2016. Page 19 of the CBO letter to Reid says the average premiums for insurance plans under the final version of the bill should be “quite similar” to the estimates the CBO and Joint Committee on Taxation made in a Nov.

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Obamacare slaps $15,000 annual fee on middle-class families

January 13, 2010 (Housing Market Monitor) By Dean Baker January 13, 2010 Modifications that involve payments to banks are giving money to banks, not homeowners. It’s been two and a half years since the mortgage crisis became a national issue. In this time, more than 3 million homeowners have lost their homes through foreclosure.

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Mortgage Modifications: What Is the Point?

Here’s a neat post by Bill Pratt over at Tough Questions Answered. Excerpt: But what about the Bible?  Is there support for the view that all sins are not equal in Holy Scripture?  Yes, actually there is. Let’s look at the words of Jesus.  In Matt

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Does the Bible teach that all sins are equally bad?

What would happen if Obama succeeds in passing a law to force insurance companies to accept customers with pre-existing conditions at the same price as everyone else who doesn’t have pre-existing conditions? Investors Business Daily Read this IBD editorial by George Mason University economist Walter Williams. (my second favorite economist) Excerpt: Sen.

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What are the consequences of insuring customers with pre-existing conditions?

CNN reports that Chavez has devalued the Venezuelan bolivar. In the wake of his decision to devalue Venezuela’s currency, President Hugo Chavez on Sunday said he would put the military on the streets to ensure that business owners don’t raise prices. Speaking on his weekly television program, “Alo Presidente,” Chavez railed against merchants who re-price their items in reaction to Friday’s announcement that the Venezuelan bolivar currency, which had been fixed at 2.15 to the U.S.

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Chavez marches Venezuela down the road to serfdom at gunpoint

An article from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation . Excerpt: According to the federal department of human resources and skills development , 18 per cent of young men 18-24 were in university in 2005-06. The equivalent figure for young women was 28 per cent.

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MUST-READ: Why our schools are failing boys

Dean Baker The Guardian Unlimited , January 11, 2009 See article on original website The conventional wisdom (CW) is that Ben Bernanke deserves a second term as Fed chairman because of the extraordinary measures he took to prevent the economy from collapsing into another Great Depression. Bernanke is one of the country’s leading experts on the causes of the Great Depression and therefore was especially well prepared for dealing with the downturn. The promulgators of the CW argue that we were fortunate to have the right person in the job when we faced this crisis.

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The Case for Bernanke: A Really Bad Joke

Great post by the admirable Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse on MercatorNet. (H/T RuthBlog ) Excerpt: California’s high-profile federal lawsuit against Proposition 8, which begins in court on January 11, appears to be about creating a federal case for same sex marriage.

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Jennifer Roback Morse explains the California lawsuit against Prop 8