As Bill Otis says, “it has taken Obama less than 15 months to do for the Democrats what it took Bush eight years to do for the Republicans.”

Of all the people in human history who ever reached the age of 65, half are alive now.

To force the Chinese to revalue the yuan would be, in effect, a tax on Americans. Chinese goods would become more expensive, yet there are few U.S. producers for most of these consumer goods. So, Americans will be made poorer by such U.S. policy and the economy will suffer as less dollars would be available for consumption. The opposite effect is that China’s citizens have to pay more for foreign goods. In effect, by keeping the yuan low and pegged to the dollar, our Chinese friends are subsidizing U.S. consumers. We should thank them for their mercantilist, centrally planned policies that favor us. The other consequence is that the many U.S. companies which have goods partially made or assembled in China would be hit hard. U.S. manufacturers which sell products made from parts made in, or assembled in, China would see their cost go up, lose sales, revenues would slide, and be forced to layoff employees. Think about the many “U.S.” products you buy that fit this definition: Dell, Apple, HP, Ford, GM, etcetera. And what about U.S. companies importing and selling Chinese goods? Employees in the import and retail trades would be hurt as consumers cut back on purchases of more expensive goods. We would lose jobs, not gain them. Why doesn’t Mr. Geithner care about these jobs?

There’s really no difference between: a) being able to produce more manufacturing output in the U.S. due to productivity increases that allow us to take advantage of technology advances and employ fewer workers, and b) being able to increase our manufacturing output in the U.S. by taking advantage of low-cost labor in China and employing fewer American workers. The first example substitutes more efficient capital for labor, and the second substitutes low-cost labor for high-cost labor, but the net result is the same: more output with fewer workers. Imposing penalties on low-cost Chinese manufacturers because some U.S. jobs are eliminated makes as much sense as imposing penalties on American companies that introduce technology (e.g. robotics) and in the process eliminate some U.S. jobs.

Make no mistake, these companies are still on life support. The CBO expects that the lion’s share of the government’s losses on TARP will come, not from anything the Bush administration did, but from the Obama administration’s decision to bail out the automakers and to a lesser extent, its bailout of homeowners. It seems that a big chunk of our cost may come from picking up the gold plated pensions … “Cadillac Plans”, if you will … of the automakers. And lest you think I’m picking on unions over management, it was management that used the UAW as a prop to extract these gargantuan sums from the pockets of innocent taxpayers.

What should determine who gets what in health care? With respect to other basic needs (food, clothing, shelter, physical safety, etc.) all developed countries have safety net institutions that — often very imperfectly — ensure that the least well-off have some minimal provision. Beyond that, whether people get more or better depends on their income, wealth and personal preferences. No one seriously argues that we should all eat the same kind of food, wear the same kind of clothes or live in identical housing. But with respect to health care, attitudes are often very different.

Look at the unemployment rate among 20-somethings — now at 25 percent and rising. It is more than twice the national average, and this is for a reason. The costs of hiring far outstrip the value of new workers to firms. During a recession, these marginal workers are avoided. There must be some solution that the market provides, if only for young people to not be completely shut out of the division of labor. The rise of the internship is the market’s finding the workaround to government regulations, evidence of the tendency of liberty to grow up like grass in the cracks of sidewalks. The mutual utility that comes from internships has become especially attractive for people in recent years. Evidence shows internships in every single field are exploding. This is all to the good. As the New York Times reports, employers posted 643 unpaid internships on Stanford’s job board this academic year, which is three times the number posted two years ago. The National Association of Colleges and Employers found that 83 percent of graduating students had held internships two years ago. In 1992, during boom times, only 9 percent held internships. The government is saying that all of this could be illegal.

The presumption among those on the left who favor regulation is always that regulators will somehow be smarter than banks over the course of the risk cycle, when the evidence strikes me as showing the reverse to be the case.