Author Archive | Todd Zywicki

I’ll be participating in a program tomorrow at noon at the Cato Institute on the question, “Did Lack of Consumer Protection Cause the Crisis?”  Info is here.  Participants include Janis Bowdler, National Council of La Raza; Thomas Durkin, Former Economist, Federal Reserve Board; Ed Mierzwinski, U.S. PIRG; and myself.  Moderated by Mark A. Calabria, Director, […]

For the past year or so one of the more enjoyable and enlightening television programs I’ve stumbled across is Dale Alquist’s “G.K. Chesterton, The Apostle of Common Sense” on EWTN (the Catholic television network).  I note it now because according to what has been showing up on my dvr over the past few weeks it […]

An interesting article in the Chronicle of Higher Education (I’m not sure if it is subscriber-only) raises some excellent points about the health-reform legislation that hadn’t really occurred to me previously.  One point that I should have thought of myself but didn’t occur to me is the peculiar incentives created by the mandate to cover […]

Josh Wright has an interesting comment on the WSJ’s article the other day on the apparent waning of the influence of behavioral economics in the Obama Administration.  In fact, Josh observes something that I noted about the article as well–the example given of the supposed influence of BE (the divergence of interests between landlords and […]

I’ll be part of a lunchtime program tomorrow at the Heritage Foundation in DC on “Protecting Consumers in the Financial Marketplace: Thinking Outside the Boxes.”  Program and registration info is here.  I’m looking forward to hearing New Jersey Congressman Scott Garrett who is also on the program and is very knowledgeable about financial reform issues.

Another Dartmouth Alumni Trustee election is upon us.  Voting starts tomorrow.  And even though the Board of Trustees eliminated parity a few years ago, alumni still elect one-third of the non ex-officio trustees.  This year there are two seats open.  Journalist Morton Kondracke is running unopposed for one seat.  Petition candidate Joe Asch ’79 and […]

Jim Huffman, former Dean of Louis & Clark’s law school, is going to challenge incumbent Ron Wyden for a U.S. Senate seat from Oregon.  I’ve known Jim for years and all I can say is that the entire country would be incredibly blessed if the people of Oregon show the good judgment to elect Jim […]

I have an op ed in today’s Washington Times, “Stripper Searches for Loot Loophole.”  No, I didn’t think of the title (although I wish I did!).  And no, I don’t think there has ever been quite as large of a gap between the titillation of the title of an article and the article itself–which is […]

Harvey Silverglate has an interesting column up at “Minding the Campus” that notes the surprising similarities between the development of speech codes on college campuses and the expansion of abusive prosecutions in law.  In particular, Harvey notes that they both rest on highly vague rules subject to abuse by enforcers and which provide traps for […]

My latest contribution to the WSJ, on why the presence of a CFPA wouldn’t have prevented this financial crisis and won’t prevent the next one, is here. The working paper I reference is here.

Roy Poses has the remarkable story of the resignation of Brown President Ruth Simmons as a Director of Goldman Sachs.  She took $4.2 million in stock units with her and 10,000 additional options.  Roy also has some provocative comments on the increasingly intertwined relationships between academia (especially elite academia) and Wall Street. I’ve noticed (partly […]

Bruce Caldwell observes that sales of The Road to Serfdom boomed in November 2008 and haven’t slowed down since.  And he offers a few hypotheses on why that is. Much has been written about whether Hayek is right or wrong as a matter of history or historical inevitability.  To my mind that’s largely a side […]

Eugene notes the interesting question of whether a state could pass an advisory recall of a Senator.  As I discussed in one of my papers on the 17th Amendment (see this article, pages 171-173 especially) for the Framers the issues of “instruction” and “recall” were tied up together.  Under the Articles of Confederation, state legislatures […]

One of my favorite books on consumer credit–and one that dramatically reshaped the way I think about policy questions involving consumer credit–is Lendol Calder’s marvelous book, “Financing the American Dream.”  Among Calder’s insights is his observation that every generation of Americans has believed that the current generation wasn’t as frugal and financially responsible as earlier […]

Eugene asks about successful Professor-Politicians.  Commenters add several he omitted, most notably Dick Armey.  To the list we can also add former Mercer Law Prof Jim Marshall of Georgia and the late Paul Wellstone (oddly, if you type in a Google search for “Was Paul Wellstone ___,” Google suggests the word “murdered” instead of “a […]