STAFF NEWS & ANALYSIS Showing 5401 - 2 of 2
US Economy Now Like Royalist System of Europe?
March 08, 2013
This was predictable. Keynesian monetary stimulation doesn't work. The US has a bifurcated economic system now, which is really the European royalist system. This would seem to be the result of deliberate economic policies that have virtually split the US into ...
What Does the Dow Really Measure?
March 08, 2013
As we mentioned in another article, today, the US is increasingly operating as a two-track society and simply observing the price of the Dow Jones Industrial Average does little to enlighten us about the real health of the US economy. While NPR is not usually a ...
Will Grillo's Dubious Affiliations Send the EU Back Into a Sterile Debate?
March 08, 2013
Just yesterday we pointed out that the Italian elections further deepened the grave that Southern Europe is preparing for the EU and for the euro. But a feedbacker pointed out that the winner in Italy's recent election, Beppe Grillo, was a disciple of the socia ...
Dancing Into the Abyss, Against All Reason
March 08, 2013
"Financial markets are not yet pricing in US over-indebtedness. If they did, the world would be heading towards a 'blood-red abyss'." ~ Professor Laurence J. Kotlikoff Over the past few months, the economies of industrial nations have continued to shrink. The e ...
With Italy's Election, the EU Chasm Grows
March 07, 2013
Italians went to the polls and rejected the EU's faux austerity program but former premier Mario Monti doesn't accept the new course and has proposed new elections instead. This has happened before. When Ireland voted against the wishes of the Eurocrats, Irelan ...
Is Hyperinflation a Myth?
March 07, 2013
This is certainly a well-written and incisive analysis but we find it difficult to believe in this day and age that someone can argue that printing paper money is not of itself inflationary and that it will not lead to price inflation. The Austrian – free-mar ...
Are Inclusive Nations Successful Ones? Bill Gates Writes a Book Review …
March 07, 2013
Wow, Bill Gates writes a book review on his site, TheGatesNotes, and we get a glimpse of how the great man thinks about major issues of our time. Gates hits a lot of the right notes in his review, from our perspective. Of course, we haven't read the book so we ...
I've Fired The New York Times
March 07, 2013
For years I subscribed to The New York Times online. Then I took the Sunday Times only for a couple of years but they managed to annoy me nearly as much as the daily edition. (I still have the online version, mainly so that I can check in on the latest balderda ...
Food and Wealth
March 07, 2013
"'Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead' ... in essence shows how 80 percent of America can solve most of their health care problems at very low cost because the thing that is driving health care expenses up is you have a highly controlled, highly governmentalized system β ...
Perception Over Substance – Banking Fallacy?
March 06, 2013
Mark Carney is set to be the next Governor of the Bank of England, so his words are worth listening to. In a message to university students at Western University (see above) Carney revealed the reason for the regulatory push that is going on in the EU and North ...
Is Monetary Stimulation a Sensible Economic Policy?
March 06, 2013
This New Yorker article offers us tribute to monetary policy. But certainly there must be a question about manipulating stock averages up using increased money flows. The article ends by challenging free-market types to "acknowledge the success" of politics and ...
Africa … Next China?
March 06, 2013
We've written about this emerging trend before but it is such a startling one and contains such great import that it is worth noting again, and perhaps on a regular basis. This Economist article from our point of view is no accident. It conforms to other simila ...
The End of the Business Cycle – Again!
March 06, 2013
This is a strange article because it acknowledges what anyone who has covered business cycles for a length of time knows well – that the demise of such cycles, while regularly predicted is never accurate. Bill Clinton predicted an end to destructive business ...
Gentlemen, Start Your Presses
March 06, 2013
In his Congressional testimony last week in Washington, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke took time to downplay the significance of the few dissenting voices on the Fed's Open Market Committee (FOMC). Those statements, combined with an even more dovish statement by Fed ...
The New Era in Gold Repatriation Will Affect Everything
March 05, 2013
The move toward auditing gold holdings is getting more pronounced as we can see from this demand by Mexico in the above article excerpt. German officials have asked the US government for gold repatriation and so has Venezuela. Now it's Mexico's turn to start th ...
The Great Rotation: Stock Picking Versus Promotions?
March 05, 2013
Predictions of a bond bubble popping are generally accepted now and not so surprising as they were even a year ago. But this Reuters editorial on the Great Rotation out of bonds makes some good points. No matter what happens with the bond markets – especially ...
What the EU Bank Bonus Plan Really Accomplishes
March 05, 2013
At this point in the business cycle it's pretty amazing that those running the EU believe that controlling bank bonuses by regulatory fiat is going to do anything to ameliorate the EU's larger problems. The issue, of course, is not out-of-control banks or banke ...
South America After Chavez – Not What You Think
March 05, 2013
Not so fast. It certainly begins to look like Chavez is not going to recover from his long struggle with cancer and a surface analysis of South America without Chavez might conclude that the region will be less confrontational. But this may not be the case. Cha ...
The Missing Recovery
March 05, 2013
Officially, since June 2009 the US economy has been undergoing an economic recovery from the December 2007 recession. But where is this recovery? I cannot find it, and neither can millions of unemployed Americans. The recovery exists only in the official measur ...
The Fed's Tightening Pipe Dream
March 05, 2013
Testifying before the US Senate this past Tuesday, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke made an extraordinary claim about its bloated balance sheet: "We could exit without ever selling by letting it run off." What Bernanke means here is that the Fed could simply hold its ...
Shooting the Black Swan
March 04, 2013
Black Swan. Being Austrian, we never believed in it to begin with. There are business cycles, triggered by excessive money printing – and these cycles predictably trigger black swan events. Which means, really, there are no black swans. The black swan was a k ...
NY Times: 'Net Feedback Distorts Thought
March 04, 2013
The New York Times, like other mainstream publications, is struggling with reader feedback. More and more mainstream media limits feedback to articles, in our view – and this is partially because the feedback seems to be getting more and more vehement ... and ...
The Inconvenient Meme: Wall Street Folds
March 04, 2013
Wall Street – an intermediating industry – has been cast lately as the cynosure of evil, the center of maleficence. Whatever is wrong with the world springs from Wall Street – or so some think, especially the Occupy Wall Street crowd. But now it appears t ...
Brilliant Polemic Defends US Freedom … and Demands Appropriate Incarcerations
March 04, 2013
In another brilliant polemic, the famous Washington's Blog lays out a substantial litany of what the US has lost in terms of rights, and from this article's point of view it is mostly everything. It is an article containing both truth and sincerity. We agree wi ...
The Sequester 'Crisis' And What Should Be Done
March 04, 2013
Despite what the media and politicians would have us believe, the United States did not collapse last Friday when the package of spending reductions known as "sequestration" went into effect. The financial markets hardly blinked, as they have come to be more sk ...
Democracy and Gay Marriages
March 04, 2013
Frankly I have no horse in this race, nothing personal in any case. For my money you may marry your grandmother or cat, if all parties consent. Marriages ought to be a matter of contract and not based on any myth or superstition. Folks should not be interfered ...
US Corporate State
March 04, 2013
It didn't take long for opponents of the market to pounce after the events of 2008. The crash was said to prove how destructive "unregulated capitalism" could be and how dangerous its supporters were – after all, free-marketeers opposed the bailouts, which ha ...
Nigel Farage on the European Union, UKIP and Britain’s Great Awakening
March 03, 2013
The Daily Bell is pleased to present this exclusive interview with Nigel Farage. Daily Bell: What is your feeling about the EU? Can you sum it up please? Nigel Farage: Like Communism, it is a good idea that has gone badly wrong. The Euro will endure a slow, lin ...
Bloomberg's Bet
March 02, 2013
Politicker.com recently posted a report on a radio interview by New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg entitled, "Keep Calm and Carry On: Don't Panic About the Sequester." According to the article, Bloomberg stated that the "United States could owe 'an infinite amount o ...
Austerity's End Could Bring Additional German Turmoil
March 02, 2013
This interesting Reuters editorial that seems to reaffirm what has recently been reported in Der Spiegel (see related article, this issue). As we have read other analyses regarding the "end of austerity," we wonder if this begins to constitute a kind of sub-dom ...
New Petition Demands that UN Offset Its Carbon Footprint
March 02, 2013
The United Nations has come under attack for not practicing what it preaches. The EcoGreen editorial above, puts it succinctly as follows: It is not unreasonable to ask the UN to use its own mechanism to offset its emissions. Such bold action would lend the UN ...
Dotcom Copyright Case and Manning/WikiLeak Trial Show Elite Jurisprudence Under Attack
March 02, 2013
We have long predicted that the US justice meme would be one of the last to come under attack as a result of the Internet Reformation but the battle has obviously been joined in two high profile cases. In New Zealand, data-content entrepreneur Kim Dotcom is und ...
Italy Founders While Greece Subsides: Is Austerity Over? Not So Fast …
March 01, 2013
We learn from Der Spiegel that austerity in Greece seems to be subsiding. This comes at the same time that Italy is rejecting Brussels-imposed austerity at the ballot box. Is austerity over? The news is filled with reports about how the Italians have decisively ...
Two-Tier 'Privileged Flyer' Program Advances in EU: Non-Approved Unable to Fly?
March 01, 2013
As we have mentioned numerous times, the ultimate goal of the current security regime seems to be to create a two-tier travel system in which some people – with government approved credentials – will be able to travel with relative ease while others will no ...
Drudge Analyzes the Decline and Fall of the West
March 01, 2013
Drudge today is carrying a troika of headlines on the decline and fall of the West. - (US) Incomes Drop Most in 20 Years - Eurozone Jobless Hits a Record - Britain Slides Toward New Recession Drudge runs his headlines in a clever fashion, often building a large ...
A Close Encounter with Zombiedom
March 01, 2013
Ben Bernanke spoke out on Tuesday, leaving no doubt where he stands on the QE issue. To print or not to print? He hardly seemed to think about it. Instead, he announced himself four-square in favor. If there is to be any prudence or propriety at America's centr ...
USSR Redux: Top Eurocrats Indicate Europe's Recovery Will Be Centrally Planned and Green
February 28, 2013
It is no accident that people refer to the EU as the EUSSR. In a not very noticeable but nonetheless breathtakingly arrogant statement, a top EU Commissioner has just served notice that EU commissars intend to subject Europe to a massive amount of environmental ...
Internal IMF Study: Fund Has Gained World's Trust by Advocating Currency Debasement
February 28, 2013
The IMF is ready to pat itself on its collective back and has used an internal report to do so. According to a summary of the report that appeared in TheNews.com, the IMF is now seen as more of an international pal than a nagging nanny. An account of the report ...
Bono Raises Money for Africa's Impoverished, But Does It Do Any Good?
February 28, 2013
Singer Bono was back in the news again with please to support the charity he cofounded called ONE. But Bono's campaigning for poverty relief in Africa inevitably brings up larger issues that have plagued almost all modern relief efforts. The biggest issue is th ...
Singapore A Wise Owl Among Currency Snakes
February 28, 2013
As China enters the "Year of the Snake," Singapore stands as a beacon of sound currency in a world gone mad. China's renminbi remains pegged to the US dollar, while even steadfast Switzerland has followed the US, UK, EU, and Japan into an impoverishing strategy ...
Disastrous Financial Transaction Tax Gains Traction
February 27, 2013
Like a bad penny, the "financial transaction tax" keeps turning up and if this article is accurate, the tax is gaining momentum around the world and will eventually penetrate the United States as well. And that would be too bad. Wall Street is basically a creat ...
Shock: Bloomberg Columnist Bashes Keynes … Dialectic Expands, but Not Far Enough
February 27, 2013
As the West's rolling depression drags on, some good things are happening including the gradual devaluation of the reputation of John Maynard Keynes. Now, Bloomberg columnist Matthew Lynn has penned an encouraging opinion piece criticizing the great British eco ...
Canada Going Down … More Evidence of a North American Union?
February 27, 2013
We were impressed by this article posted at the Financial Iceberg (see above) – as it summarized in depth what some other recent articles have also alluded to regarding Canada's suddenly precarious economic situation. The Financial Iceberg is run by Jean-Pier ...
Shock: Australian Gov Now to Seize People's Live Bank Accts – If 'Inactive'
February 27, 2013
If you have a bank account in Australia that you don't "use" for three years, the Australian government is now legally empowered to confiscate your money. We had to read this article several times and we're still having trouble taking it in. We checked and it's ...
Morning in America or Darkness at Noon?
February 26, 2013
In a world of monopoly central banking, words have lost their meaning. A "recovery" means that more paper money re-inflates enterprises that might ordinarily be considered bankrupt. Failing firms receive a new lease on life because the powers-that-be won't let ...
Let Local Bureaucrats Spend Central Bank Super Money
February 26, 2013
Ellen Brown is back with another idea of how to get the US economy moving again: Print money and give it to federal and local governments. Good Lord. Once again to the breach. Ms. Brown is back with another screed celebrating local US bureaucracy and proposing ...
Suddenly, There Is Energy Everywhere, Even in Africa
February 26, 2013
Suddenly, the US has enough available energy to be self-sufficient for a thousand years. And now we are told – by the BBC no less – that one of the world's more impoverished nations – Kenya – may be able to tap the equivalent of millions of barrels of o ...
Two Mighty Libertarian Brains to Debate Copyright and IP?
February 26, 2013
Well, here we have an example of two "big brains" – respected free-market commentators – that have decidedly different opinions when it comes to intellectual property. In fact, a feedbacker pointed out that we should have asked the free-market economist Rob ...
The Libertarian Public Interest
February 26, 2013
A particularly irksome rhetorical ploy against the free society's champions is that they refuse to acknowledge that there is such a thing as the public interest (or public good or general welfare or some such goal). Critics of these champions routinely wag thei ...
Man Bites Dog: Columnist Reveals Truth About History of 'Journalism'
February 26, 2013
We've written about the history of newspapering – pamphleteering really – but were nonetheless surprised to find a brief synopsis by Reuters columnist Jack Shafer. This is unusual. Twenty-first century journalism suffers from the same technocratic piousness ...
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