Chicago Daily Observer

From the comments section of the Financial Times Foreign Affairs Blog:

First, we find out Sarah Palin and her husband opted to have a baby knowing full well the risks of having a Down Syndrome baby after age 35. Then they parade the child’s disability around like a pity cry. I feel so sorry for that child having to be raised by ignorant, exploitive parents. Next, we find out that her daughter has been living in sin and is now pregnant. I suppose there will have to be a maternity wing added to the White House to accomodate all the Palin offspring, illegitimate and otherwise

Mark VanGelder

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are the platypuses of the financial world. As shareholder-owned companies which rely on state guarantees, the two government-sponsored enterprises are neither public fish nor private fowl. They are also evolutionary relics from another time. The US Treasury looks increasingly likely to bail out the two mortgage giants. But before it does so, Hank Paulson, the Treasury secretary, must think about an intelligent design for what he would like the GSEs to evolve into.

The Federal Reserve and the Treasury are right to try to prevent the collapse of the GSEs. But they must now work to get rid of them. Conservation efforts have kept the duck-billed platypus alive. Freddie and Fannie do not deserve the same protection.

In 1973 Richard Nixon, US president, under political pressure be­cause of rising domestic food prices, banned the export of soyabeans. The policy had predictably dire results, but today, with the world in the grip of another bout of food price inf­lation, governments worldwide are rushing to distort the market with subsidies and quotas, price controls and export taxes. They should stop