Below The Beltway

Robert Higgs takes a look at the hysteria that seems to be building in the popular media over the risk that we’re entering a deflationary recession:
We are now hearing ominous warnings about imminent deflation. Checking the welcome page at AOL this morning, I see that the lead item in the financial news section heralds “The [...]

Not surprisingly, it’s fairly clear that nobody in Washington seems to know what they’re doing to the economy:
The head of a new Congressional panel set up to monitor the gigantic federal bailout says the government still does not seem to have a coherent strategy for easing the financial crisis, despite the billions it has already [...]

Wall Street greeted the new month by falling like a rock yet again:
The evidence of a recession has been widespread for months: slower production, stagnant wages and hundreds of thousands of lost jobs.
But the nonpartisan National Bureau of Economic Research, charged with making the call for the history books, waited until now to make it [...]

Apparently, we’ve been in a recession for a year now:
It’s official: The United States is in a recession — and it started a year ago.
The nation’s economy peaked, and the recession began, in December 2007, the National Bureau of Economic Research announced today.
The group’s Business Cycle Dating Committee, the semi-official arbiter of these things, defines [...]

Peter Schiff was part of a Bloomberg Television panel on Friday discussing the appointment of Timothy Geithner as Treasury Secretary and the future of the markets.
He’s still not very optimistic.
Part One:

Part Two:

Part Three:

So far, the financial bailout is the most expensive thing the United States Government has ever done:
In doing the research for the “Bailout Nation” book, I needed a way to put the dollar amounts into proper historical perspective.
If we add in the Citi bailout, the total cost now exceeds $4.6165 trillion dollars.
(…)
Crunching the inflation [...]

The economist behind Ronald Reagan’s 80’s era tax cuts says that Federal bailouts will destroy the economy if they continue:
As you read this, our government is committing enormous sums of money above and beyond normal spending, solely to stimulate the economy and prop up failing companies and markets. These additional sums are huge by any [...]

This morning, the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve Board announced a new program designed to do nothing less than prop up America’s mountain of debt:
The federal government unveiled $800 billion in new loans and debt purchases on Tuesday, hoping another infusion of cash can help unfreeze troubled credit markets and make borrowing easier for [...]

We’re about to enter uncharted territory:
WASHINGTON – Budget hawks were aghast when the federal deficit hit a record $455 billion in fiscal 2008, more than double the previous year.
That figure could double again in 2009, to $1 trillion, but even balanced budget advocates are saying that may be the price we have to pay to [...]

Now that the Federal Government has bailed out Citibank for a second time, we’re in danger of entering dangerous and uncharted territory:
While Citigroup’s second multibillion-dollar rescue from Washington hit Wall Street like a shot of adrenaline on Monday, many analysts worried that the jolt would soon wear off. Citigroup has been stabilized, but the outlook [...]