House rejects the bill. This is a magnificent repudiation of the Fed, the Treasury, Bush, Wall Street welfarists, inflationists, and stabilizers of all sorts. The costs of what the Fed has already done are going to be massive and felt for many years. But at least Congress has so far, and this time only, not participated in the evil.

It's a great birthday gift for Ludwig von Mises.

Whatever the case with stock markets--and we can be confident that whatever prices emerge are truer than they would be with a bailout--it is fantastic that oil prices have retreated so dramatically. Drivers cheer. May all commodities follow. How this can be spun as dreadful news is beyond me.

(I keep adding to this post, but I'll try to stop here shortly)

I've recently taken a perverse interest in what the "conservatives" at the National Review and Heritage have been saying about the largest one-week push for socialism in US history. Of course they are all for it. National Review has left its crumbs on all over its Corner blog. I'm especially taken with this blogger who says that this is the worst possible bill with terrible ideological consequences but "But now it's time to swallow hard and vote for the bill." Plenty more where that comes from.

The Heritage Foundation showing is remarkable actually, with a huge headlines urging the bailout. I know that this institution has done some good over the years, but they have thrown away a lot on this on.