Major newspapers around the country including the Washington Post, the LA Times, and the Wall Street Journal are urging President-elect Barack Obama to pass the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement in the lame duck session. The Los Angeles Times said it bluntly, “It’s time to stop playing games with a trade pact whose economic and political benefits are good for both nations.”

Some reports of the meeting between the president-elect and President Bush said that the president had pushed for the trade agreement in exchange for support of the auto loan package, but that was denied.

CEI has strongly supported the passage of this agreement based on its own merits – it provides surety for continued liberalized trade for Colombia, it opens up Colombian markets to U.S. goods without high tariffs, and it helps cement the close relationship with a Latin American ally besieged by leftist neighboring governments.

Oh, Happy Day! And it certainly is for all those who value freedom, responsibility and the true free market in which individuals are free to profit from their risks on the condition that they don’t stick the rest of us with their losses.

It’s not hyperbole to say the Republican and Democratic backbenchers who defied both parties’ leadership to defeat this $700 billion package of Wall Street socialism literally saved America. Whatever their reasons, this defeat (or rather victory for freedom), means that America is much less likely to turn into France, Venezuela, or the old Soviet Union, as this bailout/nationalization package would have set us on the road to becoming.

Several great speeches on the Right and Left were given. Democrats Brad Sherman of California and Earl Blumenauer of Oregon gave powerful speeches against corporate giveaways. And conservative leaders of the Republican Study Committee — such as Jeb Hensarling, Jeff Flake, Mike Pence, and of course Ron Paul — spoke about how government intervention was largely the cause of this predicament, but the bailout would doom arguments for the free market form here on out. The idea of the government making this kind of outlay to high-flying risk takers just didn’t jibe with members, and certainly not with the American people.

Read the full story

Though the bill may have been defeated for the wrong reasons—like the lack of freebies, giveaways, and handouts that many on the left had hoped for—the defeat of the bailout bill in the House has brought stocks out of their decent. The Dow Jones is now climbing.

But how can this be? How could a bill that was designed to save our economy, our country, and the world be the cause of the Dow’s drop today? Easy, the bill was introducing such incredible uncertainty into the market that investors were panicking.

It could also be that Wall Street—despite the recent bank closings—is still smarter than Washington. The reactions of investors suggests they realize the bill may have done more harm than good.

For more on why a defeated bailout bill is a very good thing and why the world doesn’t need saving, read John Berlau in today’s American Spectator.

Stay tuned to OpenMarket for John Berlau’s reaction to the bailout bill’s defeat. Also, check out our Bailout Watch page at CEI.org.

For the past few political seasons, diehard political buffs will frequently visit one site to get the latest info on various races and campaigns: RealClearPoltics.com. The site offers a compendium of original analysis and links to the most informative political stories from various publications.

This primary season is no exception, but now there’s something new. For those of us who also like to follow the market, which itself has had its twists and turns in the news lately, RCP now has a sister site: RealClearMarkets.com. We encourage all OpenMarket readers to check RCM out. It is the same format as RCP: links to variety of views on economic policy (with more than a few statist, as well as free-market, columns included) with penetrating original analysis.

The editor of RCM is, in fact, a good friend of CEI and OpenMarket. John Tamny has emerged as one of the brightest of a new generation of free-market commentators. He has direct experience in the financial field, having managed investment accounts at Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse in New York City. And his sharp writings on supply-side economics have appeared in publications such as National Review and TCSDaily.

CEI’s Center for Entrepreneurship was privileged to have Tamny as a speaker last year at our Conference on Entrepreneurs, the Stock Market and the American Dream. He gave a ringing defense of letting the market, not the government, decide executive pay. You can watch his speech here.

Also, read Tamny’s latest article in National Review Online on how subprime policies — threats of overtaxation and overregulation — may be what’s spooking the markets now.

May RCM — with hopefully much use of CEI material — inform as many people on the way markets work as RCP has educated on how politics works.