What this whole mess elucidates is, as far as politics (and subsequently, economic policy) are concerned, actual positions are of little importance. All that matters is that you root for your team, be they Democrats or Republicans. Thus, we see Fox News begin to attack every push for increased state power, while MSNBC defends such policies. Under Bush, it was the opposite.

Contrary to popular notions, Europe may be in more trouble than the United States. I disagree with Niall Ferguson on plenty, but he’s an honest thinker and his depth of knowledge is truly spectacular.

Given our huge budget deficits, the United States Treasury department has come up with a brilliant plan to meet the shortfall head on. With hundreds of billions of dollars worth of gold sitting around uselessly in places like Fort Knox, why not cash it in? Thus, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has proposed to sell all U.S. gold reserves to Cash4Gold.com. The super fair and ridiculously balanced Onion News Network reports:

So naturally, when retail gasoline prices spiked 62.7% since December 29, 2008, amidst a severe recession, I wanted to know why. Put another way, average U.S. prices at the pump have increased more than a dollar per gallon. Intuitively, we know this isn’t a positive event for economic recovery. But some say the increase in gasoline demand, and thus the price, is an indicator of economic recovery.

We tend to think of health insurance as some special category, but really it’s nothing more than a product or service, like eggs and limousine rentals. Monetary policy of increasing the money supply causes price inflation in healthcare, just as it does in dairy products. In fact, the more government involvement in a specific area of the economy, the greater inflation that occurs there. Education and medicine offer examples of this phenomenon.

Widely hailed as good news, housing starts increased 17.2% in May to annual adjusted rate of 532,000. This certainly means the real estate market and thus the economy are heading back in the right direction. Not so fast there slick. Unfortunately, at the beginning of the 2009, according to Bloomberg, there were 19 million vacant houses in the United States!

There are major advantages to 100% reserve banking. Right off the bat, banking panics are simply impossible. Since every bank has all its money on hand (or its customers aren’t contractually entitled to it at that time), there is no way that a run on the bank will cause a bank to go under. And therefore, large banking crises, such as the one we are seeing today, or saw in the Great Depression, or in the panics of 1819, 1837, 1857, 1871, 1893, 1907, etc. would never happen.

Social costs are not being reduced by the bailout, they’re being dispersed: to the taxpayer, to everyone who earns or saves the U.S. dollar and to unborn generations of Americans.

A Schiff for Dodd trade could be likened to Pau Gasol for Kwame Brown. The Lakers have made two appearances to the NBA Finals since that adept move, and lifted the Larry O’Brien trophy last night, defeating the Orlando Magic 4 games to 1. Schiff would provide the necessary punch to a depleted, incohesive unit of representatives. With his scoring ability on the perimeter, the government could begin playing a Zen-like, inside/outside game predicated on ball movement. If nothing else, they should play his videos in pre-meeting warm-ups.

Anna Schwartz weighs in on the Federal Reserve’s actions in stemming the crisis.