Free Republic

Paul A. Volcker, who helped shape American economic policy for more than six decades, most notably by leading the Federal Reserve’s brute-force campaign to subdue inflation in the late 1970s and early ’80s, died on Sunday in New York. He was 92. The death was confirmed by his daughter, Janice Zima, who did not specify the cause. Mr. Volcker had been treated for prostate cancer, which was diagnosed in 2018. Mr. Volcker, a towering, taciturn and somewhat rumpled figure, arrived in Washington as America’s postwar economic hegemony was beginning to crumble. He would devote his professional life to wrestling with...

After advising his yet-unnamed successor to grow "thick skin," Secretary-General Annan yesterday appeared to have thinned his own, lashing out at reporters who asked about United Nations and Annan family scandals. Mr. Annan refused to allow a London Times correspondent, James Bone, to ask a question, accusing him of being "an embarrassment" to his profession. The eruption...reflected frustrations...poor supervision of the oil-for-food program...failed to move on such world events as the Darfur genocide... none of the U.N. reform ideas championed by Mr. Annan were implemented beyond window-dressing. Mr. Annan's...remark that the Iraq war was illegal. The comment did not sit...

Even as the Senate Foreign Relations Committee sent John Bolton’s nomination as our next ambassador to the United Nations to the Senate floor last week, rumors began emanating from the United Nations that Secretary-General Kofi Annan may just hang it up before his term ends in December 2006 and head home to Ghana either to raise tomatoes or run for president. Things do change. Just a few weeks ago it appeared that Annan had a better chance of surviving the spring than Bolton. Annan bristled at the suggestion that he would consider resigning even in the face of mounting evidence...

The hottest question right now in the U.N. oil-for-food scandal is who has rights to boxfuls of secret evidence concerning the secretary-general of the world body, Kofi Annan. Congressional investigators and the United Nations' own inquiry team, led by former Fed chairman Paul Volcker, are wrangling over material amassed by Mr. Volcker's investigation that reportedly touches on what Mr. Annan knew about his son's lucrative U.N.-related business deals. Following Mr. Volcker's March 29 interim report, Mr. Annan declared himself exonerated. Soon after that, two investigators from Mr. Volcker's team, who had worked on the Annan case, resigned. One of these...

Over 3,500 humanitarian vendors and UN agencies in contracts with Saddam Hussein's Iraq received approximately $32.6 billion in sales for various goods and services during the 1996-2003 UN Food-for-Oil Program according to the Independent Inquiry Committee into the United Nations Oil-for-Food Program released last week. Under Hussein's reign Iraqis were brutalized, denied basic medical care and so far over 256 mass graves have been uncovered. Saddam Hussein has not been questioned by the Independent Inquiry Committee, spearheaded by former U.S. chairman of the Federal Reserve Paul Volcker, but remains a possibility. Volcker was appointed last April by UN Secretary-general Kofi...

WASHINGTON, March 1 (UPI) -- U.S. Business leaders including former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volker came out Monday against President Bush's call to abolish the federal death tax. Volker says repeal of the death tax is "poor tax and social policy" but is also, given the recent increase in federal indebtedness, "fiscally irresponsible." Working with a national network of business leaders and others who say they are "concerned about deepening economic inequality," Volker and others want to persuade Congress to reject Bush's call for permanent repeal of the federal death tax. The group, Responsible Wealth, claims the initiative would reduce...