John Berlau

By filing a civil fraud suit in mid-December against former executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) took an action that has benefits far beyond bringing justice for investors. Among other things, it ruined the holidays of some of the nation’s most prominent liberal commentators by exposing the flaws of their narrative blaming the “unfettered free market” for the housing meltdown. (more)

On the eve of the royal wedding, The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed I wrote celebrating the entrepreneurship of Kate Middleton’s parents and pointing to their good fortune in business as an example of how economic life in Britain has improved— largely due to former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s reforms — since Charles and Diana’s wedding in 1981. Similar points about increased British prosperity were made by the London think tank Centre for Policy Studies. (more)

Although the U.S. Senate voted along partisan lines Wednesday to defeat repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — also known as Obamacare — it overwhelmingly on the same day voted to repeal one of the provisions that has proven most burdensome to entrepreneurs: the mandate for business to file IRS 1099 reports on any purchase over $600. (more)

Give Dick Durbin some credit for his chutzpah. It’s not every lawmaker who, in proposing an amendment to a financial reform bill ostensibly aimed at targeting “fat cats,” would admit that the inspiration for his measure was a Fortune 500 CEO. (more)

General Motors’ false advertising that it has paid back its bailout money “in full” has prompted harsh criticism. Yesterday, Competitive Enterprise Institute Attorneys Hans Bader and Sam Kazman filed a complaint asking the Federal Trade Commission to investigate these claims, noting “GM has only repaid a fraction of those funds—barely ten percent, and “moreover, GM apparently repaid its loan by using other federal funds [emphasis in original]” (more)

In the continuing debate over the recently signed health care bill, the flash point is the individual mandate—the requirement that nearly all American adults purchase what the federal government determines is an adequate amount of personal health insurance. Even though this aspect of the bill had received widespread support in the business community and has been supported in the past by some Republicans, many Americans still see such a sweeping mandate as a bridge too far. (more)

In news accounts about fights over new regulation, the story is almost always the same. The media portray the drama as that of well-intentioned experts wanting more regulation to protect the public good versus the business lobby ferociously opposed to the imposition of these new rules. (more)