. >> good afternoon and welcome to the cato institute. i am the director of financial regulation studies at cato. i am also honored to serve as moderator for today's book form. reading press coverage of the financial crisis one comes across phrases such as banks did this and banks did that. these generalities, there was no response to the financial crisis or events that preceded it. to confirm took different approaches and several ceos and their boards made poor decisions, others made good decisions, prudent decisions and sometimes brilliant decision that not only saved their firms but about and to gain market share come out stronger than ever. in my own riding i tend to place considerable emphasis on the poor public policy choices that caused this crisis it is important to keep in mind not every bank responded in these policies in the same manner. consider for a moment the role of monetary policy leading up to the crisis. the federal reserve engineered a steep yield curve that provided firms with incentive to borrow short and lend long.

friedman proves this a long time. >> the president of the cato institute not the cato welcome, right?ke over, john? >> october 1st. >> the whole deal, cato. so breathing more objectiveism into some entity that already got a little bit of objectiveism into it already, doesn't it? enlightened self-interest? >> and limited government. the history of limited government is good and the history of big government is bad. >> we'll talk in two seconds. i just made a point with kevin offhand about everybody's says washington's broken and it's like, you know, there are people sent to washington that are trying to stop a freight train headed in what they feel is the wrong direction. i don't know if washington is broken or gridlock is the last thing we've got going for us from trying to keep u.s. ending up where we don't want to be. >> the governing body of government reflects really how broken government is, quite honestly. i don't know why anybody would expect -- i don't know too many people that think government is particularly effective or efficie efficient. >> so by definition government is s

welcome, everybody, to the cato institute. i'm david bowes, the executive vice president of the institute, and we're trying something a little different here, doing an event after work hours. we'll see how that works out. but hopefully it's good for people who have jobs, and -- [laughter] >> can't come to the events we do usually at noon. so we're glad to have you here. glad to have a very interesting discussion of ron paul's revolution. about 30 years ago, there was a book published about the early years of the libertarian movement called "itoo usually gyped with ayn rand" and that's what we found here at cato, the student whose came to us, had federal read ayn rand, read "atlas shrugged" and i think you can say over the past six years it usually begins with ron paul. that where you get more people getting their first taste of libertarian ideas and then maybe they move on to read cato policy studies, ayn rand or whatever. but a lot of people being brought to the concept of liberty and limited government by ron paul and his ca

we have greg cato from the treasurer tax collector's office. >> good morning, supervisors, greg cato from the office of the treasurer and tax collector. the item before you today is a accept and expend grant to fund a full-time outreach coordinator to support our community outreach efforts for the kindergarten to college program. this is going to be a 100% grant funded position with no matching funds required. as you may know, the kindergarten to college program started two years ago and is now operating in every elementary school in san francisco. as of this school year and every kindergartener received a college savings account in his or her name. our early results are very promising. families have saved over $180,000 of their own money into accounts and a majority of our savers are -- come from low-income families. however, what we have noticed is that in order to maximize our program success, we need to develop more resources to high touch outreach and communication with families. currently we just have one person who is both administering the program and doing outreach. and, so,

outs of this issue and joining me now to do just that roger pilon vice president of legal affairs at cato institute and george washington reporter for the nation magazine gentlemen i want to welcome you to the program today let me just start by asking you roger in your opinion what will today's announcements accomplish not a lot the twenty three measures that he himself is going to take if you look at the relatively trivial for example pretty big as well pretty big as well calling for the centers for disease control to do a study of the causes of gun violence is if we don't have a pretty good handle of that already other measures to deal with data sharing in those are important better because right now that is a problem but most of the measures that are the ones that we hear about the. restriction on assault weapons that's informed is going to take legislation that can be done by executive order right and george i mean talk to me about this because a lot of what the president did today is sort of call congress to action to keep this topic you know keep keep the bright lights you know shin

financial crisis and the free market cure" i wrote the book even before i knew i was coming to the cato institute. people ask me why did i write the book? the basic answer is interesting to do what they were talking about. [laughter] because if you listen to the commentators they don't know what we're talking about. in addition it is important to on to a myth and they become very destructive over the long term and in relation to the financial crisis it was caused by the deregulation of the banking industry but it was not deregulated under the bush administration. we had a massive increase. the pitcher backed, the privacy act and sarbanes-oxley. while there is plenty of green on wall street it was not us satin play of greed like it swept out of the north. [laughter] that is not what caused the financial crisis. in my book i talk about the five khmer -- primary cause. we live in a mixed economy not the free-market the least regulated technology has done very well the most regulated in the world is financial-services. that is very had the biggest problems. no surprise. government policy cr

senior fellow at the cato institute. i will start with you.ere is the president back in 2006 on the idea of raising the debt limit. he said, the fact that we are here today to debate raising america's debt limit is a sign of our leaders failing in the u.s. government cannot pay its own bills and i intend to oppose the effort to increase the debt limit to and here he is begging for the debt limit to be raised now that he is president. >> i think that he was right several years ago when he talked about the size of fiscal irresponsibility, but all of a sudden he seems to think it is just a wonderful, peachy keen idea. gerri: irresponsible thing to do . brad, to you. i am -- i went back and looked at the last time the government was not paying its bills. twenty-six days back in fiscal year 1996. clinton was president, and the only really bad thing that happened is that we furloughed a lot of what is called nonessential workers from washington. what is the ultimate impact if republicans don't agree to go along with the president and raise the debt

welcome to the cato institute. i'm david boaz of the institute of her trying something different you are doing an event after work hours. we'll see how that works out, but hopefully it's good for people who have jobs and can't come to the events we do usually at noon. required to have a very interesting discussion of "ron paul's revolution." about 30 years ago there was a book published about the early years of the libertarian movement called it usually begins a timer and unless we found a cato, that most of our interns and students who came to her seminaries had first read the fountainhead. not all of him, but more than anything else. i think you can say over the past six years, it usually begins with ron paul. as we get more people hitting their first taste of libertarian ideas and maybe then they move on to read ayn rand and cato policy studies, whatever. but a lot of people being brought to the concept of liberty and limited government by his campaign and to me it is clear that he got more attention and more su

welcome to the cato institute. i'm david boaz of the institute of her trying something different you are doing an event after work hours. we'll see how that works out, but hopefully it's good for people who have jobs and can't come to the events we do usually at noon. required to have a very interesting discussion of "ron paul's revolution." about 30 years ago there was a book published about the early years of the libertarian movement called it usually begins a timer and unless we found a cato, that most of our interns and students who came to her seminaries had first read the fountainhead. not all of him, but more than anything else. i think you can say over the past six years, it usually begins with ron paul. as we get more people hitting their first taste of libertarian ideas and maybe then they move on to read ayn rand and cato policy studies, whatever. but a lot of people being brought to the concept of liberty and limited government by his campaign and to me it is clear that he got more attention and more su

institute -- subject held at the cato institute at 1000 massachusetts avenue northwest.sday, january 29th, the senate subcommittee on health holds hearings on the 30 million new patients needing primary care services. that starts at 10 a.m. in room 430 of the dirkson building. wednesday, january 30th, the senate foreign relations committee continues its first full eetings of the 113th congress that. begins at 10 a.m. in room 116 of the capitol building. on thursday, january 31st, the senate armed services committee opens hearings on the nomination of chuck hagel to be the next secretary of defense. that's at 9:30 a.m. in room 50 of the dirkson office building. on friday, february 1st, nasa marks the 10th anniversary of the space shuttle columbia disaster and honors its other fallen astronauts with a day of remembrance. ceremonies begin at 10 a.m. at arlington national cemetery and that is your capital rundown for the week of january 28th, 2013. you can find more at www.myfoxdc.com and reach us on twitter with #capitalrundown. i'm tom fitzgerald. we'll see you next week.

or into the cato institute. you had a falling out with one of the founders. you mentioned the foundation. how does that fit in? >> another policy group, and i do not pay enough attention to them. the mercatus group. >> the frazier institute. economics of the world report. their money. >> you mentioned kato. foundation. are they libertarian? >> they tend to be pro economic liberty. i view them as traditional conservatives. >> what is the motive for people to give money to these places? >> it is a good question. i have met donors who give money to places like this before. usually, they thought the world was moving in a certain direction and they think it is a bad thing and want it to move in a different direction. people often say they must be selfish. they must want to get regulations on their own businesses. they want to lower their taxes. is that really what is going on? they are losing money. if that is what they are doing, they are losing money. they spend a large amount of money on something that, even if it did pay out, it would not lower their taxes eno

cato institute senior fellow and former dallas federal reserve vice president, joining me now in a foxusiness exclusive from reno nevada. gerry, an f? i understand how you feel about this especially because you talked once and you say this is an artificial rebound that they have engineered. let's use that word. and yet i would say that a lot of smart people have given ben bernanke a thumbs up in many cases, for example, lou dobbs who feels they did what they had to do. i was talking to some russians who are big in business overseas, they said central bank saved us. but why do you feel they deserve an f grade? does that go for all 13 semesters that we have passed over the past several years? >> well, i don't know if i said an f. but look, they did the right thing in 08. you know, back in the lehman failure and so on. they provided liquidity to the market. but now what they are doing is making whole asset classes and segments of the economy dependent on more stimulus. and the problem is it's going to take more and more stimulus to run an economy on fumes, basically. now, of course there

the director of the financial regulation at the cato institute, the think tank in washington, says theew rules could improve banks' safety mechanisms. >> liquid is in -- liquidism is in the eye of the beholder. in the united states, mortgage- backed securities are what got us into trouble. in the au, sovereign debt is what got the -- in the eu, sovereign debt is what got the eu into trouble. the new rules expand to go beyond sovereign debt, beyond mortgage-backed securities. i think there is a real trade- off here. many of these things will not be liquid when push comes to shove. on the other hand, if you have a very narrow set of liquid assets, if those assets get in trouble, as we learned with the euro crisis, then you have something that is a shock that would not be systemic become systemic and threaten the entire system. the only thing that is truly liquid is cash. the vast majority of us banks today -- u.s. banks today and european banks would already be compliant with these rules. i would go as far as to say that bear stearns would have in compliance with these rules, for instanc

we be there with the right ideas to move in the right direction and that is heritage, the work of cato, and we do have bright ideas. and so i -- even the why not saying is that we couldn't get back, i think we will win because we have the right ideas. i want to share one last thought that relates to the american sense of life and it has to do if individual ethics we had problems in philosophy and a lot of my company did much better in this financial crisis than any large financial institution in the u.s. given the nature of the business etc and people ask me why and we had some great people and a good strategy but mostly we had the right kind of culture and ideas and we got ten core values and i think those are great we have a real sense of purpose and our employees and our employees wanted to do two things, they wanted to make the world a better place to live but something for themselves become bind our energy that people have about doing good work in the world, but doing it personally because you have to have the right to your own life. second, we had the highest respect for the rati

dan mitchell studies state pension problems with the cato institute and kevin james is running to be. how bad is it? people want to be responsible i think. >> i am not sure. politicians want to be reelected and state government workers want to get as much as they can before the house of cards comes down. there are too many people writing in the wagon netted of people pulling now they raise taxes cc the productive people leaving the state more people living off the government sooner or later nobody is there to pay the bills. john: but california has a higher cost of living. >> even with that this does not justify the difference of the $50,000 average for 70,000. california prices itself out of the market. john: and calpers assumed the 8% rates of return. now they just lower it down at seven point* 5% like that is responsible. why do they think they can make that rate of return? >> tonight i will party with the victoria secret supermodel. it would happen if calpers will not meet those targets that means the unfunded liability which is a huge will become enormous they cannot pay their b

billion dollars in enforcement a year is not going to solve the problem david a recent report by the cato institute a conservative koch brothers funded is originally charles koch foundation reveals that comprehensive immigration reform is going to add one point five trillion dollars to our g.d.p. whereas a mass deportation would result in two point six trillion dollars lost to our g.d.p. both over the next decade why why are you not embracing this because of the dire straits that our economy is in you know just today i was watching the president say how we have to raise the debt ceiling so we can pay our bills and this is going to generate such more so much more debt you know if we're going to go through this process in the vetting how about this would this be for a compromise these individuals who would now be on this path to citizenship would not receive any state or federal benefits welfare under any euphemism have to work on the books and such so as not to displace an american worker and not be a bigger burden on our financial system though they already have it already inside the poss

dan mitchell studies state pension problems with the cato institute and kevin james is running to bebad is it? people want to be responsible i think. >> i am not sure. politicians want to be reelected and state government workers want to get as much as they can before the house of cards comes down. there are too many people writing in the wagon netted of people pulling now they raise taxes cc the productive people leaving the state more people living off the government sooner or later nobody is there to pay the bills. john: but california has a higher cost of living. even with that this does not justify the difference of the $50,000 average for 70,000. california prices itself out of the market. john: and calpers assumed the 8% rates of return. now they just lower it down at seven point* 5% like that is responsible. why do they think they can make that rate of return? >> tonight i will party with the victoria secret supermodel. it would happen if calpers will not meet those targets that means the unfunded liability which is a huge will become enormous they cannot pay their bills the

the director of financial regulation at the cato institute says the new rules could improve banking mechanisms. >> is really defined what liquid assets the banks can sell quickly. the liquid is in the eye of the beholder. it really started out with a focus on mortgage-backed securities. we know that in the united states mortgage-backed securities is what got us in trouble. greek debt was treated as risk free and it turned out to not be the case. the new rules to expand that. they go to things like corporate debt and corporate equity, so there's a tradeoff that many things would not be liquid when push comes to shove. on the other hand when you have narrow assets when they get in trouble, you have something as a shock that would not be systemic and threaten the entire system. at the end of the day the only thing that is truly a liquid is cash. it is worth keeping in mind the vast majority of u.s. banks and european banks would already be compliant with these rules. i would go as far as to say bear stearns would be compliant. >> banking still seems risky. what about taking a chance on the lotter

from the cato institute center for constitutional studies, is this an increasing trend, trevor?> absolutely. codes and cities across the country how you can use your property. they talk about community what about the neighborhood? government controls how neighbors use property. that is not part of the american plan. gerri: can i control my own property? by and not doing anything harmful? no marijuana, not dumping chemicals bad for the environment, a growing vegetables, how can that be something in violation? >> is a head scratcher. the municipal code is about political power. and right now stay at home gardening is on the rise so more cities will overturn the code but do we want to fight to grow our garden? gerri: it should be a given. more and more cases like this house are the courts responding? >> it is heartening. it is disturbing because property rights are a cornerstone of liberty you can say this is mine and you cannot say anything about it. with eminent domain of use and the epa is a huge violator have been doing a pretty good job they have been slapped down to the epa b

this is why the opposition--you know the wall street journey the cato institute not baking liberal thought very supportive of immigration reform. they understand that people wanting to work is actually a key part of an important part of the american economy. bringing them out of the shadows ultimately makes sure that everyone is playing by the rules. can the republicans really tamp down the zennic phobic. except for native americans, everyone else in this country came from some place else and it was us versus them. for many families they were them until they became part of the american dream. that's what we're doing right now. he's saying remember our history. it's time for us to make our society for inclusive and absolutely, let's make sure that everybody plays by the rules. >> jennifer: i thought it was very interesting in his remarks he was very evocative of the of the european immigrants who are now several generations back, and probably are the roots of the many of the republican, the irish polish scandinavians, i thought it was very strategic for him to call at a forth and remind us

underway in washington with a forum on the subject at noon at 1,000 massachusetts avenue northwest at the cato institute. tuesday, january 29th, the subcommittee on health holds a meeting that starts at 10:00 a.m. wednesday, january 30th, the senate foreign relations committee continues its meeting of the 113th congress in the capitol building. thursday, january 31, the senate armed services committee opens hearings on it's nomination of chuck hagel to be the next secretary of defense. that's at 9:30 a.m. and on friday, february 1st, nasa marks the tenth anniversary of the space shuttle columbia disaster. ceremonies begin at 10:00 a.m. that is your capital rundown. you can find more at myfoxdc.com, and reach us on twitter with hashtag capitalrundown. i'm tom fitzgerald. see you in the next week. can you find a take where it's a bit more dramatic on that last line, yeah? yeah i got it right here. someone help me!!! i have a flat tire!!! well it's good... good for me. what do you think? geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. just ask pc mag. [ man ] "cabl

joining me now, jerry taylor from the cato institute. great to have your.t's back in the president's hands once again. what is your betting on what you will -- you will do? >> i don't know. they don't send me internal memoranda. my guess is he will approve the pipeline. it's very difficult to say no. the state department already argued the filing sometime ago that it would have minimal impact on the environment. not a lot of dispute that this would be good for the economy. gasoline prices may have been sliding, but they seem relatively high command others think of the pipeline as a way of addressing that. given all that i suspect the president will approve the pipeline, but i could be wrong. gerri: as you know, the governor of nebraska said it will change the root of the pipeline and make it go around and offered that supplies water to the state of nebraska and other folks. is this going to be enough to satisfy the greenies out there? will the environmentalist be happy? >> it won't satisfy the environmentalists because there have always been to arguments. t

he is the from the cato institute and head of downsizing dost government.org.hank you for joining us on this holiday. >> thank you. adam: why won't it raise more money if we raise the capital-gains tax? why won't it raise t money for treasury. >> capital very mobile. we live in a globalized economy. if the united states raises its taxes on capital, in other words, investment, investment will flee across international borders. countries that have high tax rates on capital shoot themselves in the foot. for that reason, just about every industrial country has a, has cut their capital-gains tax rate. so, for example, our capital-gains tax rate tomorrow, will jump up to 24%. we have state level taxes on top, that brings us to 28%. but the average in the industrial world is just 16%. that is because just about every country realis if you have a high capital-gains tax rate, you shoot yourselves in the foot and you lose investment. adam: who does the rate go up for starting tomorrow? is it everybody? does the state at 400,000? if you make less than 400,000 a year does

randall o'toole studies urban transportation for the libertarian leaning cato institute. >> the federal government had one criteria when it was passing out high-speed rail funds. and that was, had states done an environmental impact statement, so that the projects would be shovel ready. >> reporter: vermont had a shovel ready rail project and the white house was ready to shovel out money. >> it didn't matter if the project was worthwhile, all that mattered is whether they were shovel ready. >> reporter: as for the low ridership, actually ridership in vermont is up. they said we just hit a bad day. if we waited until the late train friday night on martin luther king holiday weekend, we'd see a big crowd getting off is at this station. >> we had 28 reservations coming into the essex station tomorrow night. >> 28? >> correct. >> all those people could fit on one bus. right? >> it could. but that's not their choice. their choice is rail. >> reporter: guess what else is coming to vermont. even more money from u.s. taxpayers for high-speed rail. that in reality is making slow-speed rail just

here is a blog post that is a website for the person who wrote it from the cato institute.nment seems to have lost all sense of proportion here and the apparent legal theory behind the government's case that using a website in a manner that violates it's terms of use constitution felony computer hacking could serious unintended consequences. do you know the government now was charging him with up to, as i said, 50 years in jail? you get less time in jail for assaulting a supreme court justice, threatening the president. snowingly spreading a.i.d.s. selling child pornography bank robbery and armed bank robbery manslaughter selling slaves and helping al-qaeda. they would get less than what aaron swartz because of multiple counts. i had previewed him on the online show before. he was a decent guy who wanted to do right. he made money off of reddit and he wanted to use it for good purpose. this was my interview with him. >> speaking of printing money did that work out for you? >> it worked out now my job is to make sure that it trickles down to other people. i feel like i got a

cato oversees there. the roman republic over the roman empire. english republican over the kings.he british parliament and ultimately of course american self-governance over autocratic power abroad is it that i venerable isi scholar, the wilmer kendall noted in the declaration of right, the founders view expressed with an emphasis on the right of law, right of the people to govern themselves. the arguments of his self-governing sovereignty will continue as the 21st century develops. submissive sovereignties obsolete. they are saying self-government is obsolete. when someone says the world of the future requires the rules of global governance, they say americans and other people do not have the moral right to govern themselves. my book argues americans do have the moral right to rule themselves as do other people does aspired to self-government and have capacity for self-government and explains the independent self-government of the democratic state is preferred to all forms of global governance. i'm going to add by simply reading the final chapter in my book, which i go back to qu

at noon, you will see a cato institute panel on the libertarian state of the union focusing on how libertarian ideas will affect public policy this year in congress and at the white house. >> in a few moments, today's deadline and your calls live on "washington journal." at 10:00 eastern, a senate subcommittee will hear from health care professionals about the primary doctor shortage and president obama will be in las vegas today to outline his proposed immigration policy changes just before 3:00 p.m. eastern. the american enterprise institutetwo new members of cone joining us this morning. in about 45 minutes, he will discuss the role but new members will play in determining the gop agenda. at 8:30 eastern, we will be joined by the democratic representative from maryland, a member of the financial-services committee. committee.

money power panel weighs n drew kenneally, lindsey piegza, and dan mitchell, senior fellow with the catogood to see all of you again. drew, let me start with you, what do you think about all this. >> economics is all about incentives. what the governor is trying to do is level the playing field for individuals and businesses to relocate to louisiana. so it all makes sense on paper. the question is what can he do politically. but economically he is going the right direction. melissa: lindsey, let's talk about the economics for a second. the personal income tax last year, he raked in $2 billion. so that a lot of revenue to be giving up. the corporate tax is very low. i think it was like half a billion dollars or something, even less than that. it was a low number. but he is giving up a lot on that personal income tax for sure. there we go. so i don't, i mean i don't know, it's going to be tough. you make that up on a sales tax. that is going to be fairly regressive? >> the difference between that short-term solution and long term prospects. right now the focus in government on state and fe

melissa: noell nikpour, she is a republican strategist and dan mitchell from the cato institute. can you fix any of those problems? what do you think? >> here is the scary about that study. give me one study that tells you one thing. there is study that tells you something else. that is what studies are for. this is the scary part that is not minutesed. >> don't have insurance, disability, long-term care going absolutely nuts with regard to cost. that is scary, if those people get sick, hurt, they're really hurt. melissa: you were supposed to solve a problem, not pile another one on top of the sundae. >> one of the problems i see are the kibuki numbers of the jobs. you have to realize a lot of these things i don't really believe the numbers. i don't think a lot of people, they have fallen off the job market. they're not looking anymore. a lot of people have taken a job that is below their level or part-time job and they counted that as a job. i don't think these numbers are true to form at all and represent what is really going on in america. melissa: dan, do you want to weigh in