1) Ben Bernanke Wins Nobel Prize For Being Wrong On The Subprime Housing Crisis
There are a few exceptions – FA Hayek, Milton Friedman, and James Buchanan, for example – but most winners of the Nobel prize in economics have been awarded to big-government Keynesians. And most of the medal winners have an abysmal record of predicting the future. Remember, more than 14 Nobel laureates in economics wrote a joint letter in the New York Times last year assuring us that Biden’s policies would NOT cause inflation.
So when former Fed chairman Ben Bernanke was awarded the prize on Monday for teaching us how the federal government should respond to financial crises, we weren’t too surprised. Giving the prize to Bernanke for his work on how government can deal with financial crises and how he responded to the 2008 mortgage meltdown when he was Fed chairman. As the Wall Street Journal editorial page points out, it was Bernanke who miaintained the near-zero interest rate policies at the Fed that inflated the housing bubble in the first place. Then when the bubble it helped create burst, it partnered with the Bush Treasury Department to implement trillions of dollars of bailouts to the bad actors and government “stimulus.” As a consequence the economy did not fully recover for more than five years – from what could have been a temporary financial readjustment.
This video of Bernanke from a 2007 hearing before the financial crisis hit, in which he says that there was little danger from the subprime housing sector, exposes how wrong he – and so many of the other brainiacs at the Fed - were.
2) Coming Soon: Preferences In Federal Programs For LGBTQ
This headline from USA Today this past weekend caught our eye:
"LGBTQ-owned small businesses received COVID-19 relief funds at a lower rate than their non-LGBTQ counterparts, even as they were more likely to apply for loans during the pandemic, according to researchers…"
But then there was this zinger of admission later in the story:
“Paycheck Protection Program loan applications included a section where businesses could report being woman-owned, minority-owned, or veteran-owned. But the Small Business Administration, which administered PPP loans, did not include a section "for business owners to distinguish their businesses as LGBTQ-owned."
Ergo: The SBA didn’t know which businesses had LBGTQ owners.
Hmmm. How could the SBA lending officers be discriminating against LGBTQ loan applications if they didn’t know which applicants were and which were not LGBTQ?
Anyone? Anyone?
Here is our solution to slamming the door shut of federal aid discrimination. Make it a law that prohibits the government from asking about race, ethnicity, or gender preferences on all federal forms or applications. This would ensure that we had a true color- and gender-blind society.
The left wants to go in the opposite direction and ask about sexual categories for loans, college admissions, and government benefits so we can have affirmative action for LGBTQ.
If you don’t believe us, here is a statement from Spencer Watson, Executive Director of one of the leading LGBTQ groups:
"The lack of visibility of queer people really does mean that our concerns are overlooked. It's time for our government institutions to wake up and realize that they need to support queer communities.”
During the 2020 presidential campaign, Joe Biden got an assist from the mainstream media which worked overtime to dismiss the Hunter Biden laptop story as Russian disinformation. Twitter went so far as to suspend the New York Post’s account for reporting on it.
Here we go again. Even as reports surface the FBI has gathered enough evidence to charge Hunter with tax and gun-violation charges – media silence.
Former Biden Press Secretary Jen Psaki was asked about the new evidence as part of her new stint at NBC. She claimed that her Internet search of the front pages of major local newspapers showed no interest in the story. In explaining it was still an “Inside the Beltway” story, Psaki said, “There was so much news happening in Washington this week, it doesn't always translate and often doesn’t translate to what voters are talking about in states.” Her argument seems to be that this story wasn’t newsworthy because…the media didn’t cover the story. Meanwhile, the Jan. 6 “insurrection” story has been on the front pages for months.
What has been remarkable during this election season is that Democrats in hot gubernatorial, senate, and congressional races are refusing to debate or setting up preposterous restrictions on the debates that make them worthless. In Arizona, even the media is attacking Democrat Katie Hobbs for ducking a debate with Kari Lake, which is ironic because Hobbs is supposed to be the cagey veteran, and Lake is supposed to be the political novice that says crazy “Trump-type things.”
Voters used to be able to count on debates to insert some policy discussion fiber into campaigns that were often filled with feel-good TV ads and stunts, the equivalent of campaign junk food.
Why are Democrats so reluctant to debate this year? We suspect that it is because a) they have to defend Biden (and his policies are mostly indefensible) and b) because the economy stinks, inflation and gas prices are soaring, the border is out of control, they would have to defend business and school lockdowns, and the Democrats soft-on-crime message isn’t exactly resonating.
A Brookings Institute reports that as recently as 2010, the five most competitive Senate races had 17 debates. This year there will be only seven, and the trend to early and mail-in voting will mean several will take place after large numbers of people have already voted.
Let’s get back to Lincoln-Douglass-spirited debates on the issues of the day.
5) Video Of The Day: Steve Forbes On Biden's Oil Policy
“Russian oil was always heavier than ours, their natural gas was heavier than ours and Venezuela was notorious for heavy oil,” Forbes told Faulkner Focus host Harris Faulkner. “We once had the refining capacity to handle that but now that’s being reduced. So, they’re going for dirty stuff. Saudi oil is not as clean as ours.”
“So, short-term to try to win a few votes in the November elections, they’re quite willing to undermine the economy, quite willing to undermine the environment because they think the future, again, is with windmills and the solar panels,” Forbes said. “And it isn’t, it’s much more expensive.”
