Obama Bows to Japan’s Emperor, Snubs Adam Smith: Caroline Baum Every morning I’m confronted with more evidence that the world has gone mad.

Frank, Dodd Will Fix Banking Regulation But Good: Caroline Baum Members of Congress are plumping their feathers, holding press conferences and congratulating themselves for a job well done.

Boom or Bust Leaves Bankers With Bum Choices: Caroline Baum Imagine you are a central banker. You arrive at the office each morning and scan the daily financial pages and newswires. You read that markets -- stocks, junk bonds, gold, oil -- are positively giddy due to “all the liquidity sloshing around that has to go somewhere,” or something to that effect.

‘Jobs Created or Saved’ Is White House Fantasy: Caroline Baum Heresy, thy name is Christina Romer.

If Government Pays Us to Spend, Then Spend We Will: Caroline Baum The recession is over. Yea verily yea, as the knights of old might say with chalice raised.

Bible Teaches That Banks Can’t Serve Two Masters: Caroline Baum Taxpayers may despise Wall Street’s culture of greed, view bankers as amoral and abhor the idea of government bailouts. What they really can’t stand is watching the bailed-out banks throw their new-found wealth at their employees without getting a piece of the action.

Ayn Rand, Goddess of the Market, Led a Soap-Opera Life: Review The Panic of 2008 was bad for the economy, good for advocates of big government and great for Ayn Rand, philosopher, novelist and high priestess of individualism, who died in 1982.

Bernanke Frets Over Sherlock Holmes’s Next Stop: Caroline Baum Federal Reserve policy makers like to explain the world in terms of feedback loops, except those of their own making.

Treasury Bond Rally Fails the Asset-Bubble Test: Caroline Baum Bubble sightings are proliferating by the day, and with interest rates near zero, it’s not hard to understand why. Easy money leads to excess credit creation, which eventually produces inflation in goods and services prices or some type of asset bubble.

What Central Bankers Say When They Mean ‘Awful’: Caroline Baum Everywhere you look, there’s uncertainty.