In the 1930’s, there was the Nye Committee, which ultimately concluded that the U.S. participated in World War I to save the big banks who’d foolishly lent money to Britain and France.

The premise of the current financial regulatory reform is that the establishment missed the last bubble and, therefore, more power should be vested in the establishment to foresee and prevent the next one.

Americans are being inundated with claims about renewable and alternative energy. Advocates for these technologies say that if we jettison fossil fuels, we’ll breathe easier, stop global warming and revolutionize our economy. Yes, “green” energy has great emotional and political appeal. But before we wrap all our hopes – and subsidies – in it, let’s take a hard look at some common misconceptions about what “green” means.

Sadly, the witch hunt in Arizona is playing out on a larger scale in Washington. Congress is rounding up the usual suspects. It is demonizing largely innocent and highly productive folks, only a minority of whom suckle at government’s teat. Congress is exploiting the prejudices of voters whose understanding of who these alleged devils are, and of what they do, is infantile. Self-righteous bullies such as Sen. Carl Levin are feathering their own political nests by stoking the misconception that evil leeches are preying on the economy – leeches that, we’re assured, must be burned off the body-economic by the Capitol’s high priests.
In fact, compared to this inquisition by Congress of financiers, bankers, and insurers, Arizona Republicans are rank amateurs in the dark arts of inflaming popular prejudices against unjustly maligned and feared minorities.

Moreover, the discretion given to the government in the Senate proposal opens the door to undesirable actions such as allowing the administration to write checks to favored parties. This concern is not theoretical: such mischief took place in the bankruptcies of Chrysler and General Motors, as the two auto companies were used as conduits to transfer billions of dollars from TARP to the president’s political supporters.