Free Markets Didn’t Create the Great Recession

POST by Don Watkins | View All Posts March 01, 2017

Myth: The Great Recession was caused by free-market policies that led to irrational risk taking on Wall Street. Reality: The Great Recession could not have happened without the vast web of government subsidies and controls that distorted financial markets.

Government And Business

The Myth of Banking Deregulation

POST by Don Watkins | View All Posts February 16, 2017

Myth: Finance was deregulated during the 1980s and 1990s, laying the groundwork for the 2008 financial crisis. Reality: Although some financial regulations were rolled back during the late 20th century, the overall trend was toward increased government control.

Government And Business

The Debt Dialogues [Episode 49]: Yaron Brook on Finance (Part 2)

POST by Don Watkins | View All Posts September 22, 2015

The Debt Dialogues is a weekly podcast that aims to educate young people about the welfare state and how it will affect their future. In this episode, the second of a three-part interview, I talk to ARI’s executive director, Yaron Brook, about the financial industry — one of the chief targets of the attacks on economic inequality. Topics include: the productive contribution of hedge funds, why finance is a top target of the inequality alarmists and the causes of the 2008 Financial Crisis.

Government And Business

Governing Right Out of Atlas Shrugged

POST by Tom Bowden | View All Posts June 02, 2014

Stephen Moore, chief economist at the Heritage Foundation, published a hard-hitting op-ed in the Orange County Register over the weekend. It’s a timely follow-up to his viral 2009 Wall Street Journal column drawing parallels between the collapsing economy in Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged and the chaotic world of Washington politics at the height of the financial crisis.