By Ann Wagner A little over a year ago, Congress passed the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act. The JOBS Act was designed to make it easier for entrepreneurs to raise capital and turn their ideas into job-creating businesses that might one day go public. At a time of slow growth and high unemployment, the JOBS Act was a big win for the St. Louis region and the American economy. Not only was the JOBS Act good policy — it also was an important bipartisan breakthrough at a time of heightened partisanship. During the Rose Garden signing ceremony, President Obama hailed the bill as a “pote... Read More »
WSJ-MarketWatch: How Thatcher would have fixed the financial crisis She ignored conventional wisdom, acted on her beliefs UK Telegraph: The IMF is flunking the financial crisis By turning its fire on Britain, the IMF gives the impression it is out of ideas and solutions Financial Times: Wake up to the #Twitter effect on markets Investors need to spend more time thinking about the way social media can affect financial markets Reuters: New regulations require cleaner data Continuing efforts by financial regulators and by firms themselves to monitor and offset risk have affected almost all areas ... Read More »
Forbes: Margaret Thatcher Exposed The Infantile Illusions Of Socialism Margaret Thatcher’s economic policies, we are often told, were cruel, harsh, immoral. In fact she was a deeply moral thinker, and the moral superiority of the free market was central to her thinking. She made the case for it like no other major political leader. Washington Post: Is easy money creating a new wave of bubbles? Trillions of new dollars, euros, yen and pounds are sloshing around the global financial system, a result of extraordinary efforts by the leading central banks over the last several years to try to yank ... Read More »
By Patrick O'Conner WASHINGTON—During Jeb Hensarling's first congressional bid, a man at a campaign stop in Athens, Texas, asked the Republican if he was "pro-business." "No," the candidate replied, drawing curious stares from local business leaders who had gathered to hear him speak, a former Hensarling aide recalled. "I'm not pro-business. I'm pro-free enterprise." Now, more than a decade later, that distinction has Wall Street on edge. The new chairman of the House financial services committee wants to limit taxpayers' exposure to banking, insurance and mortgage lending by unwinding govern... Read More »
American Banker: Fannie and Freddie Must Go One of the priorities of Rep. Jeb Hensarling, Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, is to end the conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and let the private sector take the primary role in operating the residential mortgage industry. No other country in the world has the equivalent of the hybrid government/private-sector model of Fannie and Freddie, which has already cost taxpayers more than $150 billion. Real Clear Markets: The Real Story Behind 'Rising' Retail Sales On March 13th, the Commerce Department announced a 1.1 percent... Read More »
FHFA In 2008, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two giant government sponsored entities which helped fuel the housing bubble, received the largest bailout in U.S. history. Serving as Acting Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), Edward DeMarco has been tasked with managing the GSEs’ mortgage portfolio and protecting taxpayers from future losses. At Tuesday’s hearing, Director DeMarco testified on the need for Congress and the Administration to reduce or eliminate the government’s near total support for the mortgage market. This will open the door for private capital to return an... Read More »
National Review: Representative Hensarling on the CFPB The logical import of Noel Canning v. NRLB, the D.C. Circuit’s decision striking down President Obama’s unilateral, non-recess NRLB appointments, is that the president’s similar CFPB director appointment is also unconstitutional. House Financial Services Committee chairman Jeb Hensarling agrees (h/t Todd Zywicki). Barron: The Ruling Class The Dodd-Frank law misses the primary causes of the financial crisis. RCP: Dodd-Frank: 'Financial Stability' On the Backs of Taxpayers March 11 marked the start of mandatory central clearing for certain k... Read More »
FHA Government backing for the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) gives it competitive advantages over private sector mortgage insurers, driving them out of the marketplace and leaving homebuyers with fewer choices, witnesses told the Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance. Wednesday’s hearing was the third in a series the Financial Services Committee is holding this year to examine the nation’s housing finance system. Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) announced in January that the hearings will focus specifically on the financially troubled FHA and the need to crea... Read More »
Last week Chairman Hensarling and Oversight & Investigations Subcommittee Chairman McHenry sent a letter to Attorney General Holder and Treasury Secretary Lew seeking any and all documents related to the consideration of economic factors in the decision to prosecute large banks for financial crimes. The committee's investigation comes out of Mr. Holder's recent comments at a Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing in which the Attorney General suggested some large financial instutitions are now "too big to jail." Read the letter to Holder and Lew. Read More »
In January, a federal court held that the Senate was not in recess when President Obama made three appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). In deeming those appointments unconstitutional, the court invalidated decisions made by the NRLB during the illegal appointments. While the court ruled only on the NLRB appointments, Richard Cordray, the President's nominee to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), was appointed at the same time and in the same manner as the unconstitutional NLRB appointees. Chairman Hensarling anticipates that a federal court will soon rea... Read More »
