Cities around the nation are spending thousands in taxpayer dollars to promote tap water because of the alleged environmental problems with bottled water. But these campaigns just go to show how silly the issue has become. Minneapolis recently dropped $75,000 just to build a website encouraging people to drink only tap water. A college kid probably could have put up a site just as useful with a few hundred bucks. But governments are not that efficient! The site is part of a…

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Not all stimulus programs are created equal. If the goal of the latest economic bailout package that Congress is considering is as President Elect Obama has declared, job creation, there is a significant disparity between many of the programs.  While only 39 of the variously appropriated federal programs even attempt to quantify the number of jobs that they would create, there is a huge disparity in how effective various programs are at job creation — ranging from $1,000,000 per job…

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The Bush administration’s outline of its automaker bailout package lists some seemingly sensible changes in labor practices that GM and Chrysler need to make. (Ford, to its credit, is seeking private financing instead.)

Targets: The terms and conditions established by Treasury will include additional targets that were the subject of Congressional negotiations but did not come to a vote, including:

Reduce debts by 2/3 via a debt for equity exchange.
Make one-half of VEBA payments in the form of stock.
Eliminate the jobs…

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Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae were the catalyst for our current financial crisis. By buying up risky sub-prime mortgages, Freddie & Fannie encouraged banks to make risky loans to folks who otherwise wouldn’t have received mortgages.

Freddie & Fannie did this because they had the backing of the U.S. Treasury.  The executives at Freddie/Fannie knew that if they made a bad move and lost billions in the market, the government would bail them out.

This notion was laughed at a few years ago…

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