Check Out John Stossel's New Blog
The libertarian host of ABC News' 20/20, John Stossel, has a newish blog out that is a great source if you trade in Free Minds and Free Markets. A recent snippet:
At my Princeton Reunion a few weeks ago, I participated in a panel called Wall Street, K Street, and the New Regulatory Era. Of course the panel turned out to be: 4 lawyers plus me. All the lawyers explained why my pro-free market argument was naïve. The lawyer to my right, Beth Wilkinson, not just a Washington lawyer, but the wife of Meet the Press host David Gregory, even personalized her argument by saying "John" while trashing the deregulation I championed.
It was all in good fun, however, and today it was more fun to discover that a few days later, one member of the audience, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, talking about hedge funds and private equity funds, said: "I do not believe they need to be so closely supervised and regulated as depository institutions. A presumption of government protection and support for financial institutions outside the "safety net" should be avoided."
I'd also like to remind the eager-to-regulate crowd that when the market tanked, the highly regulated banks suffered most. When their market capitalization was down about 50%, I remember that the unregulated hedge funds were only down about 18%. So why is regulation always the "solution?"
Stossel teamed up with Reason.tv to make the recent special Bailouts & Bull. Get a whiff below.
