STAFF NEWS & ANALYSIS
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December 11, 2014
This is huge news, and it's definitely launched in a big way on the mainstream media. As of this writing, the situation is still in flux but from what we've read this legislation is taking place. Even if it doesn't happen this time, it's part of a trend that wi ...
December 11, 2014
This is a case of one step forward, one step backward when it comes to cannabis legalization. But in a sense the two occurrences we'll discuss here shed some light on the larger mechanism of legalization now taking place. The first occurrence is Congress steppi ...
December 10, 2014
The contradictions of the current "bull" market worldwide are catching up with the averages. Call it an equity "cognitive dissonance." Understandable turmoil in Greece combined with the puncturing of an "exuberant" Chinese stock market caused a sudden global se ...
December 10, 2014
So now it is general knowledge that the US tortured throughout the Bush administration ... and beyond. The publication of this information by the Senate Intelligence Committee is generating a massive wave of indignation around the world. The US has long been se ...
December 09, 2014
This is an interesting meme. Economists ARE influential, though not for the reasons that The Economist enumerates. In fact, we can make an argument that modern mainstream economics is entirely a manufactured science: in the past we've done just that. Anyway, th ...
December 09, 2014
This interesting survey confirms what has seemed obvious to us and our readers for years: That the 'Net is making people more informed, not less. This has proven to be, in our view, an unstoppable process and one that is sparking major social changes. We track ...
December 08, 2014
Wow. We've been banging the drum regarding the shady manipulations of Europe's founders for years now. But it looks as if those who have ignored this sordid history are gradually giving in. That's how life works in the Internet era. 'Net exposure eventually col ...
December 08, 2014
So it begins. In fact, we asked the question quite a while ago regarding the thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands in jail for using cannabis. "Where is the justice?" we asked. By phrasing the question this way, we positioned it as moral issue. And, yes, the ...
December 05, 2014
This is predictable. EU officials are now stating they are going to do what they want to do whether or not the EU agreements allow it. We've mentioned it numerous times because onetime EU top man Romano Prodi is on record as suggesting that this would happen so ...
December 05, 2014
Reading about Orwell in The Economist magazine is a bit like reading about a celebration of the Internet in China. You can expect that a lot has been left out. Defending its lack of substance, the article retreats into the kind of archly intellectual tone that ...
December 04, 2014
Elite memes have two sides and we can see this when it comes to the stock market. On the one hand, there are plenty of articles in the mainstream media indicating that the current "rally" could go on indefinitely. And then there are articles like this that prov ...
December 04, 2014
Scientific American often provides us with memes we recognize, especially when it comes to global warming. Another theme is the virtue of government science. For the editors at Scientific American, there can be almost no significant breakthroughs without govern ...
December 03, 2014
What's funny about this Bloomberg editorial is that it criticizes gold purchasers for following "stories" but somehow neglects to explain that those who purchase stocks, bonds, commodities and real estate are also following certain narratives. To put it another ...
December 03, 2014
Yesterday came word that Britain was banning the filming of numerous kinds of "violent" sexual acts including spanking. We're not going into the specifics of what was "banned" because it really doesn't matter. What does matter is that elites, specifically Briti ...
December 02, 2014
Rand Paul is back in the news with statements about the war on drugs creating a "culture of violence" that puts police into an impossible situation. In the same editorial, he also said the criminal justice system targets more blacks than whites but that nonethe ...
December 02, 2014
It didn't take that long for the mainstream media to start debunking an increasingly favorite libertarian report regarding the "First Thanksgiving." We recently presented the libertaraian narrative here at The Daily Bell in a scholarly retelling by Richard Ebel ...
December 01, 2014
This Reuters article states clearly what we've been pointed out in our Wall Street Party meme: It's not just a US phenomenon. We noted this as quantitative easing began several years ago in the US. The EU, too, was stimulating European economies at the time as ...
December 01, 2014
The numbers were more skewed than we expected, but the anti-gold vote was not a surprise. For a variety of reasons, the Swiss don't seem to seek a return to a quasi-gold standard. There are, of course, various speculations regarding this vote. Some believe, as ...
November 28, 2014
This article presents us with a predictable meme regarding financial centralization as a competitive advantage. When it comes to banks, this is an especially ubiquitous theme. That's because those behind the century-old banking consolidation are desperate to es ...
November 28, 2014
This report from the Russian news agency Tass (via Spanish Publico) might be easily dismissed; but for several reasons it is likely not. First, the report is not firsthand but apparently is part of a book being written by WikiLeaks's Julian Assange. Second, we' ...
November 27, 2014
This is an interesting critique because it deals specifically with the inputs that Fed officials use to decide on the value and volume of money at any given time. We've often pointed out that the rationale for central banking generally is, well ... economically ...
November 27, 2014
USA Today has weighed in on the upcoming gold referendum in Switzerland with a predictable anti-gold article. In fact, the anti-gold tone when it comes to the mainstream media is overwhelming. Central bankers hate the yellow metal because it restricts their fre ...
November 26, 2014
Once more, Germany is being brandished as a club. From what we can tell, this is an age-old meme. The idea is that what the Germans did to Rome 2,000 years ago, they can do to Europe today. Thus: Beware of Germany. We don't have to go that far into the past to ...
November 26, 2014
The Wall Street Journal recently published a passionate plea to young investors regarding the stock market. It is truly a remarkable statement. And in fact, it is only one of several recent editorials that have appeared recently that push such exposure. We last ...
November 25, 2014
Is UKIP now going to be portrayed as a populist party? The Economist uses the word "populist" (see above) to describe UKIP, and this may provide us with a significant clue. That would be disappointing because UKIP is in many ways a "libertarian" party that want ...
November 25, 2014
This Bloomberg editorial fires a beginning salvo for an emigration tax. With seven million US citizens living abroad and the US fedgov apparently in dire need of revenue such a tax might serve two purposes. First of all, it might make emigration more difficult ...
November 24, 2014
The Fed has apparently announced that it regrets the way it conducts its bank supervisory role and intends to do better. This is yet further fallout from revelations from Carmen Segarra, a bank regulator for the Fed who published considerable criticism about th ...
November 24, 2014
Two momentous events are taking place in the Americas. One is the ongoing implementation of a US-government inspired "immigration overhaul." The other is continued and expansive unrest in Mexico. The BBC, watching the immigration tumult unfold from across the " ...
November 21, 2014
So the British Parliament is meeting to discuss "Money Creation and Society," a scenario that can give rise to numerous different imaginary interactions, many of them potentially amusing. In fact, we don't believe most MPs understand the monetary regime under w ...
November 21, 2014
Gone is the almost disparaging confidence of Swiss bankers and others when it comes to this anti-fiat referendum that could basically force the Swiss National Bank to back at least 20 percent of assets with gold. Only months and even weeks ago they were almost ...
November 20, 2014
Such articles as the one excerpted above on globalization seem dishonest to us. The article deems globalization an unmitigated good but makes no distinction between the globalization of governance and the globalization of the marketplace. Nothing wrong with mar ...
November 20, 2014
The "healthy food" meme keeps growing because it's a profitable one. But like many other things in the modern mercantilist environment, it's not entirely what it seems. We'll try to draw a distinction in this article that will allow us to examine this trend and ...
November 19, 2014
This is an odd editorial because it seems to rewrite history. We thought "Abenomics" was supposed to be a bold experiment to revitalize the Japanese economy. But now it seems Shinzo Abe hasn't gotten it right after all. This Bloomberg editorial seems to skip ov ...
November 19, 2014
Once again we have a lengthy article on the probability of legalization of cannabis in an important US region, in this case the District of Colombia. And where is the article appearing? In the establishment's favorite political newspaper, the Washington Post. A ...
November 18, 2014
We've been writing about the Wall Street Party for at least a year now, and our track record has been fairly accurate. We've pointed out this market is an entirely manipulated one and that all the manipulation runs to the "up" side. This Reuters editorial makes ...
November 18, 2014
Here's irony ... The West is driving Russia into the arms of the much despised (by bankers anyway) yellow metal. Vladimir Putin realizes the ruble is under attack and apparently his plan is to bolster it with gold. Which begs the question: Did the US and EU off ...
November 17, 2014
The global economy apparently still isn't healthy so the G-20 is implementing a rescue. From the standpoint of free-market analysis, this sort of rescue is nothing more than a waste of US$2 trillion. In fact, one could argue that the regulatory, fiscal and mone ...
November 17, 2014
The Daily Beast is puzzled about why the Keystone Pipeline remains a viable political and industrial project when nothing much adds up about it; there is, in fact, little about its construction that fulfills the promise of its supporters. Like so many large, mo ...
November 14, 2014
The continuing merger of Europe's nation-states grinds along, as we read in this report, excerpted above. It may be a non-starter and thus further evidence of EU dysfunction. But it will be pursued nonetheless because it promises further centralization of power ...
November 14, 2014
With so much going on in the fledgling cannabis industry it's difficult to know where to look next. But one of the big trends just getting underway surely has to do with growing institutional interest in the marijuana market. This is a predictable evolution of ...
November 13, 2014
This is an interesting development. Mendocino County's declaration of self-determination and self-governance fits in with the idea of the Internet Reformation we regularly mention. We've predicted that access to the information widely available on the Internet ...
November 13, 2014
It looks like medical cannabis is coming to Colombia – legally. This is ironic given the drugs wars that have been fought there and the country-wide convulsions that have resulted. The Colombia evolution certainly parallels that of other countries that have t ...
November 12, 2014
There has been a spate of "good governance" stories posted on the mainstream media in the past week or so and we've commented on some them. This is another one, excerpted above: Along with the others it certainly constitutes an ongoing meme regarding the credib ...
November 12, 2014
This is news that can be seen two ways. Looked at from a negative standpoint, the steady stream of bad news about gold continues to hike the dollar against gold. But from a positive perspective, the lower the price of gold goes against the dollar the less of it ...
November 11, 2014
We've read this article a few times and the reader responses, as well. From what we can tell, BOE's Mark Carney is determined to shift the burden of bank bailouts to creditors, including those who are in common parlance bank "customers." On the surface one coul ...
November 11, 2014
Bloomberg's "editors" have concluded – predictably – that Catalonia ought not to secede. In fact, this worldwide news agency never met a secession movement it couldn't criticize or a further agglomeration of nation-states that it couldn't find some reason t ...
November 10, 2014
The great destroyer of freedom in the US is the "politics of compromise." And this is the meme now in play since the Republican mid-term victory. The mainstream media and its allied interests have cast the victory as one for "moderates" that repudiated Tea Part ...
November 10, 2014
Now comes The Economist magazine to predict what we mentioned numerous times months ago ... that eventually the cannabis industry will consolidate. What is interesting about this in retrospect is that it's a meme. Corporations, as we've pointed out numerous tim ...
November 07, 2014
Jeremy Warner, assistant editor of the UK Telegraph, has written a strong condemnation of austerity politics. Good for him. In fact, as we can see, the article's lead actually claims the City's sentiments are anti-ECB. That's an enormous statement to make. We'l ...
November 07, 2014
Somehow Michael Bloomberg has taken yet another repudiation of the US sociopolitical system and turned it into an endorsement. Reports indicate that the turnout for midterm elections in the US was fairly abysmal and follows a pattern of continual voter disengag ...
