STAFF NEWS & ANALYSIS
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January 07, 2014
Let us begin this analysis with a fragment of one of our favorite poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley: On the pedestal these words appear: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of tha ...
January 07, 2014
It is our perspective that within the next few years, certainly inside a decade, it will be difficult to travel outside the United States or move money outside. This may go for other countries in the West, also. We've written about this before but we try to ret ...
January 07, 2014
China's impressive modernization since the death of Mao Zedong in 1976 and the end to the destructive madness of the Cultural Revolution has been epitomized by the dramatic growth of the industrial and port city of Shanghai, with its majestic skyline of impress ...
January 06, 2014
We have noticed that this is becoming a more prevalent elite meme. There is no doubt Russia is under sustained attack from the West and in the elite's top publications, especially Reuters, Russia is regularly damned as a corrupt, failed state. Of course, just b ...
January 06, 2014
FINRA has not been getting very good press. And thus this regulatory entity, a conglomeration of the NYSE and NASD's financial regulatory efforts, is apparently going to try to make brokerage safer for the average "investor." It was the Securities and Exchange ...
January 06, 2014
Remember Fallujah? Shortly after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the US military fired on unarmed protestors, killing as many as 20 and wounding dozens. In retaliation, local Iraqis attacked a convoy of US military contractors, killing four. The US then launched a f ...
January 05, 2014
I provide analytical and research services to the fund, and my partners at Spartan in Canada manage the fund. Based on Austrian business cycle theory, we think that fallout from a Canadian credit and housing correction could have far-reaching negative repercuss ...
January 04, 2014
The Drudge Report yesterday carried two bearish articles about stocks. I'll comment on both of them – generally anyway – because they bear directly on the Wall Street Party now taking place – and on which we've commented extensively. One is linked to an a ...
January 04, 2014
Have you seen the economic recovery? I haven't, either. But it is bound to be around here somewhere, because the National Bureau of Economic Research spotted it in June 2009, four and one-half years ago. It is a shy and reclusive recovery, like the "New Economy ...
January 03, 2014
Ten years ago, when we wrote about the rise of the libertarian sociopolitical center, our message wasn't exactly popular but, as we can see today in this Economist article, we were relatively accurate. First came Ron Paul and the Tea Party in the US and now non ...
January 03, 2014
The UK Telegraph has discovered that the IMF wants to inflict radically higher taxes on the world. The article quotes a report by the International Monetary Fund saying "debt burdens in developed nations have become extreme by any historical measure and will re ...
January 02, 2014
Here's a meme often repeated: The free market is under attack in the 21st century. In truth, markets generally have been under increasing attack for the past two or three centuries, or from whenever the modern globalist conspiracy took root. Some date it to the ...
January 02, 2014
This is unfortunately a kind of dominant social theme. We wish it were not so, as it is a quite repugnant one. We also think it is deliberate, for we do not believe in this Snowden episode, even though we would like to. A caveat as well: We have no direct evide ...
January 02, 2014
A draft version of the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2013 was introduced in the United States Senate on December 19. Section 2 (5) reads, "if the Government of Israel is compelled to take military action in legitimate self-defense against Iran's nuclear weapo ...
January 01, 2014
Greetings and warmest regards from all of us at The Daily Bell! We've had quite a year. The newest incarnation of The Daily Bell has been well received on all fronts, but we're not done yet... Stay tuned for more changes and significant additional editorial exp ...
January 01, 2014
2014 is upon us. For a person who graduated from Georgia Tech in 1961, a year in which the class ring showed the same date right side up or upside down, the 21st century was a science fiction concept associated with Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film, "2001: A Space O ...
January 01, 2014
It is customary, sadly, for critics of a viewpoint to distort it, caricature it, besmirch it and the like – or at least to mention only aspects of it that could turn out to be untoward some human interests. So, of course, with libertarianism, which is the mos ...
January 01, 2014
As 2013 draws to a close, let's pause to recall some important developments for the cause of liberty – some of which you already know well, and others you'll be hearing about for the first time. Edward Snowden. After sitting on the Bush-era warrantless wireta ...
December 31, 2013
In truth, democracy cannot be improved. It seems to work a bit when constrained in size to those who can fit into, say, a town square. This is how the demos was pursued in Greece and more recently in Switzerland. But the idea of mass democracy is simply a mirag ...
December 31, 2013
So a number of prominent warmists set sail on an icebreaker ship to check on the thinning of the Antarctic ice cap. What they discovered was that the ice was actually thicker than expected. And then they got stuck. If these warmists were in search of the perfec ...
December 31, 2013
Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, and his designated successor, Janet Yellen, have defended the central bank's $4 trillion monetary expansion over the last five years as a necessity to fight recession and prevent deflation. The only problem is that booms ...
December 30, 2013
There is no denying gold has fallen and hasn't yet gotten up. But the reasons for its failure and eventual resurgence remain intensely interesting. Surely no logical person can doubt that the world's securities markets are manipulated. Would that it were not so ...
December 30, 2013
This is a great Reuters editorial by the "Edgy Optimist," because it takes aim at a central issue of our time – the ability of our top elites to continue to control the Western sociopolitical and economic narrative. Of course, we have long predicted that this ...
December 30, 2013
Fast-food workers across the county have recently held a number of high profile protests to agitate for higher wages. These protests have been accompanied by efforts to increase the wages mandated by state and local minimum wage laws, as well as a renewed push ...
December 29, 2013
For the most part, bitcoin is not anonymous to begin with. That's kind of a myth. In the past, there has been research into tracking micro transactions and you can pretty much figure out the user if you track enough of them. There will always be dark wallets an ...
December 28, 2013
The Nation magazine recently posted a small articled entitled, "Pakistan gets second tranche of $553.5m from IMF." We are so used to these kinds of announcements that they hardly register anymore. But this is how the entrenched corruption of our day is carried ...
December 27, 2013
More absurdity from Reuters: The writers and editors want to lead with an upbeat jobs report but then a few grafs later they're admitting "the holiday season has made recent claims data so volatile it has been difficult to interpret." Twenty years ago we didn't ...
December 27, 2013
We wrote about this over a year and a half ago, but are not amazed to see Fox presenting it. After all, what is the use of a meme if it is not blasted through the airwaves? If people are not intimidated, then those involved in the propagation of these dominant ...
December 27, 2013
The Federal Reserve's announcement on December 18 that beginning in January its monthly purchases of mortgage-backed financial instruments and US Treasury bonds would each be cut by $5 billion is puzzling, as is the financial press's account of the market's res ...
December 26, 2013
Every central bank of note in the world is printing money faster and faster. We don't think this is any coincidence. The world's top bankers seem to want a huge stock market explosion that will make current averages look fairly tame. What comes after the punch ...
December 26, 2013
Why does the US government cling to a government facility that is not needed and loses a lot of money on a regular basis? The funding given to the US Post Office and mentioned above – amounting to six percent – is startling because it begins to reveal a rat ...
December 26, 2013
A friend is celebrating the season by visiting her children in the States. Like many millennials, her 20-something son is working brutal hours for minimum wage at an unfulfilling job. After visiting with him and his girlfriend, my friend emailed, "These kids ar ...
December 25, 2013
The following essay was published by The Daily Bell on December 25, 2009 and remains a favorite of ours. It's called, "Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus." The Federal Reserve and Congress are acting as our collective Santa Claus as we celebrate this Christm ...
December 25, 2013
USC economist Arthur Laffer identified, back in 1974, an interesting feature of oppressive public policies, applicable in numerous areas of concern to us. The principle acquired the name "the Laffer Curve" and its gist is that people will normally tolerate impo ...
December 24, 2013
More to the point ... what a mess this is. The Swiss Banks are making a desperate effort to fulfill US mandates when it comes to cooperating with US taxing authorities. But the vast effort being made shows clearly how difficult those demands actually are. Proba ...
December 24, 2013
The printed metal gun referred to in the above article excerpt is an illustration of what we might call the Law of Internet Reformation. Or we might call it karma: For every action there is a reaction. The information/technology revolution that so dispirits man ...
December 24, 2013
Barack Obama is finishing his fifth year as president, and continues to try to move America further in the direction of increased government paternalism with the implementation of ObamaCare, a push for a higher minimum wage, more intrusive business regulation, ...
December 23, 2013
The funniest thing about this article – and there are many portions that are at least incongruous – is the short excerpt that was selected as the article's title, above, "Age Shall Not Weary Her." It comes from the "Ode of Remembrance," by English poet Laur ...
December 23, 2013
We have long predicted that the outcome of the Edward Snowden "revelations" would be a rationalizing of the current global surveillance infrastructure. The problem of those who built the current infrastructure is that not enough people knew about it. These are ...
December 23, 2013
It is the time of year we feel a sense of joy and optimism. We are preparing for the holidays and looking to spend time with our families and friends. This year as we look back we see several developments that leave us feeling optimistic. A US attack on Syria w ...
December 22, 2013
There are generally three basic farming methods: green, organic and no-till. The green farming revolution lasted from the 1940s until today, but gradually it has become less effective, producing diminishing returns as the various chemicals and pesticides have m ...
December 21, 2013
The World Bank has a new mission. The Economic Times tells us that the World Bank has a new enemy to confront. It is not poverty but "corruption." Here's more: Corruption top foe in developing countries: World Bank ... World Bank chief Jim Yong Kim said Thursda ...
December 20, 2013
Once again we are exposed to a triumphant article about the eventual infallibility of the Fed. Yes, Ben Bernanke did initially have trouble initiating a "taper" but now he's found the right recipe. The Fed has found the "elixir." It can disentangle itself from ...
December 20, 2013
Frau Merkel is at it again, proving what we have long observed – that the top men of the eurozone have in mind using every scrap of each EU disaster to promote a further, deeper union. This has actually been stated in so many words in the past, and here we ca ...
December 20, 2013
Washington has had the US at war for 12 years: Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Pakistan, Yemen and almost Syria, which could still happen, with Iran waiting in the wings. These wars have been expensive in terms of money, prestige and deaths and injuries of b ...
December 19, 2013
The promotional propaganda is well underway. We are told that central banks are starting to print less money, especially the Federal Reserve. But to run a central bank is to run a printing press. And no one – no one at all – can ever say with certainty how ...
December 19, 2013
You can't make this stuff up. The top men in the globalist community have been hard at work building wars and potential wars, and now it's time to let 'er rip. This is one dominant social theme we saw coming miles away. We've been writing about its imminence fo ...
December 19, 2013
The US is attempting to give multinational corporations a status that has hitherto been reserved to sovereign nations. According to documents recently leaked from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, the Obama administration wants corporations to b ...
December 18, 2013
Step by step, government organizes savings for private citizens. Each step may seem logical at the time but the cumulative effect is to strip individuals of any ability to survive outside of the womb of the nanny state. This Reuters article is proposing that "f ...
December 18, 2013
We've often wondered what constitutes civilization. Ayn Rand believed civilization's highest art was privacy. But perhaps, to a degree, it is the rigorous adoption and promulgation of the scientific method. We arrive at the idea by returning to the Renaissance, ...
