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Your faithful host Richard Morrison welcomes back special guest co-hosts William Yeatman and Michelle Minton for Episode 46 (listen HERE!). We start with the investors that are getting worked over by the politically-distorted bankruptcy of Chrysler, the ascension of the Swedish Pirate Party to the European Parliament and the Great Porn Wall of China. We then move on to proof that beer is better for you than water, a sign that airline travel may get more expensive, and an example of how voters deal…

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Earlier, I wrote about the Indiana pension funds’ challenge to the Obama Administration’s plan to effectively give Chrysler to the UAW Union, while cheating the pension funds that loaned it money (and ripping off taxpayers), and how that violates federal bankruptcy laws.

The government is now arguing that the pension funds don’t have legal standing to challenge the plan, since they can’t prove they will be worse off than if the Administration had just sat back and let Chrysler go bankrupt naturally. The government…

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A federal appeals court has refused to block the Administration’s illegal auto bailout, which rips off taxpayers and pension funds to enrich the UAW union. The pension funds that challenged the bailout will now appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The bailout violates the federal TARP statute by diverting financial-system bailout funds to a takeover of the auto industry. And the government’s reorganization plan for Chrysler violates federal bankruptcy laws by ripping off lenders to give the company to the UAW union.

As I noted earlier, the Indiana…

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The federal government is giving another $30 billion in taxpayer money to General Motors to allow it to operate without having to cut excessive union wages. The Obama Administration is “gambling” on its ability to turn around the company under government control.

The Obama Administration has said it will now interfere not just with the “selection of the company’s board of directors,” but also in “fundamental corporate decisions,” and “major corporate events and transactions.” For example, Obama recently pressured GM to keep its headquarters…

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In the next 48 hours, Chrysler is expected to file for bankruptcy because, according to press reports, a significant minority of its creditors object to the Obama administration’s planned takeover in which the government and unions would own a majority stake. The Obama administration hopes to persuade the court to ratify and rubber-stamp its plan.  But the bankruptcy courts should exercise independent judgment instead, as they do in any typical bankruptcy case.

The expected Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing of Chrysler LLC is…

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In 2008, Obama promised a “net spending cut” (although he never did come up with cuts to offset his proposed spending increases). Obama broke this campaign promise in a big way with his proposed budget, which could bankrupt the United States, according to senior Senators.

Obama’s budget would increase spending levels so much that budget deficits would rise by $4.8 trillion to $9.3 trillion while taxes would increase by $1.9 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Yet Obama’s campaign workers have apparently learned nothing from this. Across…

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Welcome to Episode 33 of the LibertyWeek podcast, with your hosts Richard Morrison and Cord Blomquist and technical producer (and this week’s special guest) Ryan Young. After bidding our friend Thor Halvorssen a very happy birthday, we get a fresh recap from Ryan Young on the events of the Free State Project’s recent Liberty Forum in Nashua, New Hampshire (photos). Google’s CEO spurns Twitter (transcript via TechCrunch) in Technology News, John McCain and Richard Shelby say that the government should end the bailouts and…

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Perhaps with the popular reaction to Rick Santelli’s ‘tea party’, in which the CNBC commentator elicited cheers for saying that the thrifty should not have to subsdize foolish borrowers and banks, President Obama took pains in his State of the Union address to argue that his foreclosure plan will not benefit the spendthrift and irresponsible. “It’s a plan that won’t help speculators or that neighbor down the street who bought a house he could never hope to afford, but it will…

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If there’s one provision in the GM/Chrysler bailout that I just don’t get, it’s the suggestion that the automakers must be financially viable by March 31st next year or they will have to repay the loans.

Unless I’m missing something, if you’re not financially viable, repaying $17.4 billion will be just a tad difficult. This will presumably force those automakers into Chapter 11, which is what the bailout was meant to avoid, at least partly to avoid the “ripple effect” that the…

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Eli, in answer to the blog post you phrased as a question, the argument from the individual you heard, echoed by other Big 3 execs, is not a valid point in support of a bailout.

Their claim that consumers won’t buy from an automaker in bankruptcy is a specious argument. Yes, some won’t, but many consumers also are not going to buy cars from companies perceived to be so weak that they have to beg for a bailout from the government. A…

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Unfettered greed is the suspect many point at to explain the current economic crisis. To some extent, they are right, but it isn’t irrational greed on the part of bank managers or fat cat CEOs. It is the unwieldy bank regulations that forced the entire industry to walk the proverbial plank and then blame it for drowning.

Critics have alternately claimed that over-regulation and under-regulation are the causes for the current crisis. I believe one specific regulation, the Community Reinvestment Act…

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The House of Representatives just voted down the $700 billion corporate finance bailout, despite earlier urging from President Bush to push the measure through. Look for in depth analysis from our very own John Berlau and the rest of the policy team as the day progresses. Read CEI’s roundup of the continuing finance crisis (and sign up for email updates) here.

NEW: John Berlau responds (and speaks!) in reaction to today’s vote. Updated post and audio clip here.

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