Posse Comitatus? Its a Stupid Law Anyways

The Posse Comitatus Law of 1878 is about to get shoved into the dustbin of history. The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials. The long-planned shift in the Defense Department's role in homeland ...

Sex Offender Registry Stupidity

I've come to the conclusion that the U.S. has a pretty messed up judicial system. We allow no-knock SWAT raids on non-violent offenders in the name of protecting evidence. The implication being that the evidence is more important the lives of the non-violent offenders and even the police officers. We also have spent countless resources combating the ...

OTB Radio - Tonight at 7 Eastern

The next episode of OTB Radio, our BlogTalkRadio program, will record and air live tonight from 7-8 Eastern. Dave Schuler and Steve Verdon will join me to discuss Barack Obama's cabinet choices, the continuing economic meltdown, and whatever other topics we meander into. Please join us. We'll also be taking your calls at (646) 716-7030. You can play the show, subscribe ...

Russ Roberts on the Economic Crisis

I highly recommend reading the whole thing. Below are just some of the parts I liked and reflect most strongly my own thinking about the current economic mess. In 1930, Congress passed a massive tariff increase, in hopes of protecting American jobs. Hoover signed it. But it simply accelerated the economy's slide. The Federal Reserve contracted the money supply, taking ...

Fed “Spitting in the Wind”?

The Federal Reserve's new proposal to help "unstick" stuck credit markets sounds a bit dubious. Nov. 26 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve’s new $800 billion effort to combat the financial crisis is designed to make credit more accessible to shaken consumers who aren’t sure they want more debt. Households and lenders may not respond much because of the wealth destruction from ...

Consumer Spending Biggest Drop Since 9/11

Another non-shocker in economic news. Consumer spending is off by a substantial amount. WASHINGTON (AP) -- As the financial crisis was gaining force, Americans cut back on their spending in October by the largest amount since the 2001 terrorist attacks. The Commerce Department reported Wednesday that consumer spending plunged by 1 percent last month, even worse than the 0.9 percent decline ...

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

It looks like travel this Thanksgiving will be a piece of cake, for those few of you who are travelling. CHICAGO (AP) - Travelers breezed through airport terminals Wednesday and drivers cruised open roads, the effects of a sour economy blamed for keeping people closer to home at the start of the annual Thanksgiving rush. Even though gas prices fell and ...

Why Fiscal Policy Tends Not to Work

Almost 2 weeks ago commenter Odograph posted this link. It talks about how much bang one gets for one's stimulus spending. This chart shows the bang for the buck that the government can expect to get from various stimulus proposals. For each dollar spent on food stamps, for example, real gross domestic product is likely to rise by $1.73. For ...

No More Moral Hazard

Glad we beat that one. Now on to world hunger and poverty. Oh, and the cornocupia machine well be ready a week from Friday.

To Answer Alex’s Question….

Alex wants to know why we are bailing out Citigroup. Simple: the executives and large stake shareholders in Citigroup have the personal phone numbers of most politicians in their roll-a-dex. They are probably on a first name basis with Senator Harry Reid, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Secretary Henry Paulson, and Senator Mitch McConnell. Voters on the ...