Political Equinox

Last Thursday evening I had the honor of witnessing an intriguing lecture by St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard who received his PhD is Economics from Indiana University.

Bullard spoke specifically on the topic of the recent financial crisis focusing on systemic risk, which he defined as “the possibility that the failure of one firm will lead to the failure of other firms.” However, Bullard said the difficulty lies in defining when there is adequate systemic risk to call for government intervention.

Three Pillars of Systemic Risk

Interconnectedness – Recent examples of systemic risk has focused on investment banks interconnecting themselves with complex financial instruments. For example’s sake, suppose Bank A purchases an option from Bank B to hedge risk, if …

Tags: economy, fannie mae, fannie mae and freddie mac, federal reserve bank, financial, government intervention, interconnectedness, investment banks, james bullard, mortgage backed securities, president, systemic risk, tution

The results are in and people are claiming Joe Biden held his own and Sarah Palin didn’t disappoint. I must agree, even though I’ll have to give Biden the nod as the overall debate winner, Governor Palin came close.

However, don’t take that as an endorsement of the potential Vice President, as Palin benefited from the poor debate format. The moderator moved the candidates quickly from subject to subject almost as if attempting to cover the entire range of issues in a single debate.

This was wasteful of the American people’s time. Why not focus on the economy, the war, and healthcare. Giving ample time to each subject instead of skipping from question to question. Instead we addressed very little on each …

Tags: America, candidate, economy, healthcare, joe biden, mccain campaign, president

As many of you know I define myself a a Moderate Republican focusing on low taxes (especially corporate & capital gains). Tax & Economic Policy are the chief issues for me, and I share that belief with many of my fellow Americans.

This election is posing a problem for me that goes beyond issues and rhetoric. I have yet to decide upon a candidate, I’m struggling internally and I haven’t found the answer just yet.

If I take a straight take on issues I probably agree with John McCain more than Senator Obama. But taking an honest look at both men, they’ll both do a fine job. Neither one is going to ruin America, we’ll be fine no matter who is elected.

My …

Tags: America, Barack Obama, candidate, healthcare, John McCain, obama, president, republican, social security, taxes

I’m doing something I haven’t done in a long time - respectfully, yet diametrically disagreeing with Neil.

In order to understand the failure, we should first look at where this plan originated - the Bush Administration. This was a brokered bill; nonetheless, the original framework for the bailout was crafted by the Administration, lead by Treasury Secretary Paulson.  Like virtually anything that could had had a chance of passing the Untied States Congress,  the final iteration of the bill was a compromise through and through. In order to get behind the bill, Dems got executive pay limits added for companies selling their mortgages to the government as well as the ability to have controlling shares of some companies, and the Administration …

Tags: Bush, Congress, Democrats, george bush, IRS, president, republican

Patrick and I planted the seeds in January having no idea as to where we were going, but today we announce another turn in the road. Patrick and I are proud to announce that Mr. Eric Gonzaba will join Political Equinox as the third member of our team.

I met Eric two years ago in Future Business Leaders of America, where he went on to destroy me in a run for President of the Indiana chapter. Despite our differences in some areas of policy, he shares views with both myself and Patrick in that we look for a solution that best serves instead of clinging to “party …

Tags: America, evan bayh, president