Many economists say the Chinese government taxes its citizens directly and through inflation to suppress the value of the yuan in order that Chinese exporters can offer especially good deals to American consumers. The issue has been politically volatile in the United States, and this week members of Congress reintroduced legislation, approved by the House last year, that would show the world that Washington is as intent as is Beijing to tax and otherwise pick its citizens’ pockets in order to bestow special privileges on politically forceful domestic producers.

So, basically, the Administration outsourced its policy on the entire future of housing finance to a professor and a grad student, neither of whom appears to have spent a single day working the mortgage industry.

The correct option is to get rid of Fannie, Freddie, the FHA and HUD. The government should not provide any backstop or any guarantees at any time. Unfortunately that option was not on the table. Some are concerned that private lending may dry up. If it did, so what? The government has no business promoting housing or taking on risks best suited for private markets. Here’s the deal: If lenders knew there was no government guarantees, they would not make as many stupid loans. If they don’t make stupid loans, there is far less risk that lending freezes up in the first place. Moreover, if somehow the lenders do go broke as a consequence of making poor loans, bondholders and shareholders will pay the price, not taxpayers. Pray tell, what is wrong with that?

The “unseen” of cheap mortgage credit is the higher cost of funding new businesses or capital expansion of existing businesses.

There is no more important question facing a state than the place of its military relative to civil society and the roles that the military exercises. The reason is simple: on the one hand, the coercive power of a military establishment, especially a strong and effective one, makes it at least a potential threat to the regime. On the other, a weak military establishment also threatens the regime because of the likelihood that the former will fail to protect the latter. This is the central paradox of civil-military relations.

Perhaps Tolstoy’s classic essay “Patriotism or Peace?” needs a companion essay on “Patriotism or Prosperity?” Sigh.

This is one more area in which the United States under the Obama administration is behind the curve, trying to replicate European policies that the Europeans themselves are giving up on.

But the tragedy is that, on the contrary, we are already suffering the long-run consequences of the policies of the remote or recent past. Today is already the tomorrow which the bad economist yesterday urged us to ignore. The long-run consequences of some economic policies may become evident in a few months. Others may not become evident for several years. Still others may not become evident for decades. But in every case those long-run consequences are contained in the policy as surely as the hen was in the egg, the flower in the seed.

As Jonah Goldberg says, there are two major varieties of conservatism. On the one hand, there are those who do not care so much about the size of government but care a great deal about the mindset of those who run it. On the other hand, there are who do not care so much about the mindset of those who run government but care a great deal about its size.