STAFF NEWS & ANALYSIS
Showing 6451 - 6500 of 6714
July 11, 2009
OK, who knows if this is a threat or the start of a real alternative currency. Somehow we can't quite fathom that gold would be produced as currency, especially given that China has been part of this movement for a new money and China owns a trillion or so US p ...
July 10, 2009
China is said to be turning inward now, as Western countries cannot afford to buy its products. But whether China will be able to maintain its growth by using its own huge population as a purchasing pool remains to be seen. What will certainly happen sooner or ...
July 09, 2009
Where have we heard this before? Is it a coincidence that the encyclical has been released just as the G8 are meeting? In fact, the G8 and the G20 have already called for much that the Church itself calls for in this encyclical. It is as if the Church had decid ...
July 08, 2009
It is verging on irresponsible for such mainstream news sources as Bloomberg to continue to report on stimulus packages without explaining in some detail why they may not be working. Yes, stimulus packages simply do not work. They appear to work because large, ...
July 07, 2009
We do not question that governments can mandate a plan for a green revolution in power and create jobs doing so. We have seen this time and again. The Soviet Union made a great leap forward when it virtually industrialized in one generation. The Red Chinese dou ...
July 06, 2009
Does Vice President Biden really think that various billions for broadband, high-speed rail and a new electric grid are going to provide necessary jobs? Amtrak has been a miserable failure as government-supported transit, never once making a profit and under Pr ...
July 04, 2009
It is hard to believe that the president of the European Central Bank has resorted to this sort of suggestion. This is right out of the playbook of socialist economist John Maynard Keynes. Keynes, who was a central banker before he was anything else, had a fair ...
July 03, 2009
So more American jobs have been lost. And we have read elsewhere that mainstream economists are starting to fear a jobless recovery. Our readers are not surprised by either outcome. They are aware that in order for a recovery to take root that will include empl ...
July 02, 2009
Government and central banking leaders did not "salvage" or "save" the Western banking system from a meltdown. On the contrary, they perpetuated an endless bubble that will continually re-flate. Because of this, the events of the past two years are bound to re- ...
July 01, 2009
Chuck Norris may not seem as big a celebrity as some, but he is suddenly carving out a niche for himself that is unusual ... as a financially literate thespian. More than that, Norris is what would be considered these days a Conservative Republican, so his call ...
July 01, 2009
Central banks now want to invent a methodology whereby every financial transaction of consequence is codified and regulated. We truly live in an age when anything is possible, so long as a government bureaucrat or banker can imagine it. For free-market entrepre ...
June 30, 2009
Thus it is with global warming. The "solution" to the problem of global warming (or climate change) advances relentlessly, even as the problem itself comes under continued attack. And the solution has all the hallmarks of an elite promotion. Solutions that set ...
June 29, 2009
The results of the current stimulation, the additional taxes to the American electorate via potential "universal" health care, green "cap-and-trade" programs and over-reaching financial and industrial regulation will be to depress economic vitality in the Unite ...
June 27, 2009
In their day, serfs apparently paid about 33 percent of their income to their betters. Today, Western citizens often pay close to 50 percent of their income for services provided by their democratic governments. Britain is probably ahead of America in this rega ...
June 26, 2009
Here is a prediction: Buffett will continue to issue contradictory statements throughout this final leg of the business cycle. He will do so because his rhetorical platform, by design or sentiment, does not support an analysis of the larger financial system and ...
June 25, 2009
Satirist Jonathan Swift writes the mainstream news today. Nothing is as it appears and there is no conversation that is not tainted by incoherent and untruthful underlying assumptions. According to the official American meme, the US car industry collapsed becau ...
June 24, 2009
It is pretty incredible that these anti-gun conversations take place against a backdrop that has once again repressed a "civil" conversation about citizens' legitimate aspirations to live in a society that does imprison young people for holding hands. Lord know ...
June 23, 2009
The World Bank in our opinion is part and parcel of the monetary elite's kitbag. It was developed around the time of the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and Bretton Woods, and has seen its share of corruption and endless, spiraling dysfunction. ...
June 22, 2009
Now it turns out, apparently, that these bills were manufactured by the "mafia" - though which mafia and where is unclear. Before the mafia theory, the alternatives included the US government printing the bills itself or perhaps the involvement of other governm ...
June 20, 2009
Western governments have propped up their banking sectors and they have printed trillions. Thus the wretched system of boom-and-bust hangs on. The business cycle itself is elongated. Mal-investments are not fully purged. In fact, it is hardly a hallelujah momen ...
June 19, 2009
It seems to have been very important to the administration that the Fed receive more powers. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, for instance, reportedly nixed several plans that would have created a council of regulators to administer some of the powers that ...
June 18, 2009
It is ironic that former president George W. Bush returns to the rhetorical fray by criticizing President Barack Obama on the issue of free markets. President Bush's tenure at the White House was marked by a concerted attack AGAINST free-markets, in the opinion ...
June 17, 2009
The consequences of fixing the price of money – like the results of any price-fixing scheme – are devastating to the economies affected. The constant predictable, cyclical collapses give bureaucrats endless opportunities to demand more power and to declaim ...
June 16, 2009
What can be said most accurately about the current leg of the business cycle is that it will continue to be extraordinarily volatile given the amount of damage that has already been done. There will be a war of words between bankers, regulators and the mainstre ...
June 15, 2009
Well, the G8 has met and apparently contemplated the beginnings of a prolonged victory celebration. We don't wish the world or its global economy ill, but if markets continue to rise, we shall surely be subject to this. And by THIS we mean the hosannas of centr ...
June 13, 2009
Jim Rogers is trying to make a point. If you pump hard enough, you may be able to blow anything back up, at least a little and maybe a lot. Certainly, we can see the monetary elite doing their best to puff up the world's economy once again. And once upon a time ...
June 12, 2009
Strange and stranger. The majority of the British do not like the EU and do not want to be part of it. Yet the part of Britain that perhaps matters the most, the one square mile in the center of Britain, is basically seceding to the EU - with or without the res ...
June 11, 2009
For decades, this kind of advice has been dispensed by the major media, and people have believed it and strained every fibre of their beings to conform. And what are they left with? Vastly reduced retirement funds and sour regret that THEY are somehow responsib ...
June 10, 2009
Wasn't the Federal Reserve supposed to take over risk-regulation for a grateful, needy nation? We expected it, given how predictably the crisis was playing out. Like an adult Ferris wheel, the central-bank-driven business cycle was rotating as anticipated, alon ...
June 09, 2009
If one truly seeks to create a global currency, what would be the easiest path? Would it be to debase the dollar while quietly encouraging a controllable alternative? Is this what is taking place? Of course, the monetary elite never offers a single solution. Th ...
June 08, 2009
No, we're not really suggesting that the Post lifted our story, only that we believe we provided our readers with the above analysis three days sooner and with a broader frame of reference. Why is this important? It buttresses a serious point, one we've made pr ...
June 06, 2009
Climate change is back - and big. The Obama administration wants a federal cap-and-trade program that would damp down carbon emissions in the United States. It may get one given the congressional advantage it holds currently. But the problem with cap-and-trade ...
June 05, 2009
Apparently, the issue is not whether the Obama administration should be spending a budget of US$3 trillion-plus for 2009, and even more for 2010, but whether the administration is spending bailout portions of it fast enough. Say, what? Yes! This is the burning ...
June 04, 2009
Until the real economy itself is allowed to work out the mal-investment, the financial slump will continue in some form or other. Funds that would be used to create new and more realistic endeavors will instead find their way into sour companies propped up by g ...
June 03, 2009
Were they laughing WITH him? Actually, we bet the Chinese were laughing AT him. That's the way it is going these days for American monetary policy. Across the sea and around the world, people perceive what the current congress and administration apparently can ...
June 02, 2009
This is truly a top down approach to economics. Can a handful of individuals make all the right decisions all the time? Monetary inflation has brought the world near to ruin in the past few years and this desperate bet on China is likely to end in tears. It is ...
June 01, 2009
Oh, Mama! Once again top central bankers grapple with the deepest problems of high finance - and admit the struggle is a most difficult one. Are we supposed to empathize? It is all so complicated, apparently. More data is doubtless needed; more analyses should ...
May 30, 2009
Those who believe governmental involvement can cultivate "shoots of green" may well be caught by surprise when the positive rhetoric does not match the negative results. The new, improved GM may come to resemble Amtrak rather than the old auto powerhouse. Centr ...
May 29, 2009
Faber obviously understands free-market economics, but the vocabulary being used makes for confusing reading for free-market thinkers. The mainstream media uses "inflation" as a catch-all term. In fact, from a free-market perspective, inflation is an expansion ...
May 28, 2009
We wonder how these groups and individuals come up with their conclusions. The mania to elaborate on hyper-regulated nation-states with increased protections for central banking monopolies can only lead to more inflation, more innovation stifling regulation, mo ...
May 27, 2009
We've been waiting to see how the Republican party is going to fix itself in America. Despite electoral losses, there are far more constituents for American republicanism in our opinion than for any other political persuasion. Most Americans in our opinion want ...
May 26, 2009
The article also portrays the debt issue as a face off between the Anglo Saxons and the Chinese. This is actually refreshing. While we have made the point many times about the British/American monetary-military partnership – the Anglo-Saxon axis – we have r ...
May 25, 2009
For anyone watching the unfolding economic crisis and using the mainstream media narrative, the timeline is fraught with surprises and even helplessness. There is a "virus" in the economy, so it is said, and it's "spreading" - according to such sources as AP (s ...
May 23, 2009
One thing is certain. Whether the current state of affairs is merely a natural unwinding or a devious plot by a monetary elite, the results will still likely involve considerable currency chaos, inflation and massive interest rate hikes. Hard money - holdings o ...
May 22, 2009
Greenspan, in our estimation, is in this instance providing a fairly reasonable assessment. If, at the height of a bubble, bad investments are made, then once the bubble has deflated those investments must be shut down and losses taken. If those loss-making inv ...
May 21, 2009
We have written that the current situation is analogous to the days of the Gutenberg press: Finally, people could read the Bible and see priestly untruth. Today, of course, the West's establishment religion is monetary. Think about it. Are we so wrong? The main ...
May 20, 2009
It is difficult to see a way out for those who are determined to ensure that there will be a new fiat-money regime to take the place of the old one. Instead of letting a real market of honest money emerge, every lever of power and profit will be pulled to make ...
May 19, 2009
When someone like Faber user the word "capitalism" and predicts its failure our brains seize up a little. The term comes from Karl Marx. And it is therefore a sentiment that is difficult to process. Is Faber upset by the idea that capitalism might fail? The cap ...
May 18, 2009
OK, so the unrolling depression is actually an "infection." And the infection is caused by high energy prices, too much growth and millions of uninsured Americans. Yet, in our opinion, the current financial problems are not an infection. An infection may be def ...
May 16, 2009
Money is an incredibly powerful force. As more and more people realize that gold and silver are going to continue to gain in value through this latest business cycle, the prognostications of the mainstream media, and those it supports, are going to be increasin ...
