How government mostly created the financial crisis

The alternative narrative dominates the media, which mostly follows the lead of Obama. The financial crisis was created on Wall Street by greedy rule-breakers who just weren't regulated heavily enough. Fortunately the benevolent government saved us from complete meltdown just in time and has the answer to preventing such disasters from happening again. Trust us -- and give us more power.

The truth is rather different, as Johan Norberg's excellent book, "Financial Fiasco," which I reviewed for the Sunday Register, explains in reasonably irrefutable detail. Yes, there was greed and excessive risk-taking and bad judgment in the private sector. But it was operating in the environment created by government -- mainly the Fed's expansion of the money supply, the rules created to put teeth in the Community Reinvestment Act, which pressured/mandated banks to hand out risky mortgagaes, the shenanigans of the government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Bush's fixation on the "ownership society" and much more.

Other books tell much the same story. Perhaps the best is Tom Sowell's "The Housing Boom and Bust," and Thomas Woods' "Meltdown." Economists and historians who understand the market got the story into print fairly quickly, but it may be that they have preached only to the converted. For anyone willing to probe a little, however, the story of how the mesltdown was almost entirely the government's doing is available. If only a few more people in the media were willing to probe that far.

Reagan and nuclear weapons reduction

I believe I mentioned, in discussing the trip I and most of the rest of the Register's editorial board took to the Hoover Institution at Stanford in December to interview Thomas Sowell about his new book, "Intellectuals and Society," that we spent some time with Hoover senior fellow Martin Anderson, who was Reagan's chief domestic policy adviser during most of his first term. Martin and his wife Anneliese have just put together a book called "Reagan's Secret War," assembled from newly declassified minutes of the National Security Council and other documents. The thesis, which they document with cvonsiderable detail, is that one of Reagan's goals throughout his presidency (besides policies designed to weaken --or expose the weakness of -- the Soviet Union), was to take concrete steps toward banning all nuclear weapons from government possession.

I read the book and was mostly convinced. Of course Reagan didn't accomplish that goal, but he did sign START-I, under which both the US and the USSR seriously reduced their nuclear stockpiles. Here's the review I did for the Register's Sunday Commentary section today. And there's little question who was in charge of policy during the Reagan administration.

Sole source for the Sowell authority

Because of our visit to the Hoover Institution at Stanford U., the Register opinion page is the first place with fairly complete information on Thomas Sowell's new book, "Intellectuals and Society." He argues that those we think of as intellectuals -- people who deal in ideas, with ideas the end product of their work (rather than, say, an engineering design, a piece of surgery or a bridge) -- have by and large not been a good influence. Here's my column on the book and on our hour-plus interview, and here is Mark Landsbaum's column. Here is a gallery of photos, and here are some video excerpts of the interview.

Although he certainly values freedom, I've come to think that Tom Sowell is more conservative than libertarian in his orientation. Ah, well. Though I might disagree with him on certaion issues -- minly to do with war and foreign policy -- I have to acknowledge he is one of the foremost intellects of our time. And he's better in person than in print.

Talking with Thomas Sowell

Yesterday was a red-letter one. Almost our whole editorial board went up to the Hoover Institution at Stanford to talk with Thomas Sowell. He has a new book coming out in January, "Intellectuals and Society," so the normally fairly reclusive one has agreed to do some publicity work, and he agreed to have us be the first group to interview him. I figure he must have enjoyed the editorial board meeting he had with us at our office seven or eight years ago -- he acted as if he did -- and he acted as if he enjoyed this session too.

There will be video on the Register opinion page around midnight Saturday, for Sunday, along with pieces Mark Landsbaum and I wrote, which will also be in the Sunday Commentary print edition. So I'll leave details for later.

We also had a substantial talk with Martin Anderson, who with his wife Anneliese has just put out "Reagan's Secret War." Fascinating. And more on that later.