Foreign Banks, Ben Franklin, President Carter And Russian Money

*Ben Bernanke’s foreign bank bonanza. Documents from the Federal Reserve confirm that the central bank loaned more than $70 billion to foreign banks during the 2008 financial crisis—including some $26 billion to a bank owned by Moammar Gadhafi’s Central Bank of Libya. The news is sure to spur increased calls for an investigation of the Fed. “The American people are going to be outraged,” said Representative Ron Paul, one of the central bank’s most severe critics. Let’s hope so.

*What would Ben Franklin say? A study last year by the MetLife insurance company found that 47 percent of Americans say they have given money to family members in the past year so they can pay their bills. The author of Poor Richard’s Almanack would probably not agree. One of his favorite aphorisms was “neither a borrower nor a lender be.”

*The older he gets, the dumber he acts. What is it with former President Jimmy Carter? It seems there isn’t an enemy of America that he isn’t willing to embrace. He’s done it with Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega and Palestinian terrorists. Now he’s in Cuba, pleading for “better understanding” with Raul and Fidel Castro’s murderous communist tyranny. Please, Mr. President, take your Nobel Peace Prize and go home.

*Where have all the American big-spenders gone? Did you see the news that a mansion in Silicon Valley, Calif., styled after a massive French chateau, just sold for $100 million? Turns out the purchaser was not an American. No, the record for the most expensive single-family home sale in this country is now held by Yuri Milner, a Russian billionaire.

–Chip Wood