STAFF NEWS & ANALYSIS Showing 4251 - 2 of 2
Recognizing Government for What It Is
May 21, 2014
Here is a mainstream media article about the necessity for governments to reduce their size and scope. It is surprising for the strong language it uses in tracking the West's current dilemma regarding expanding and divisive bureaucracies. Nevertheless, it does ...
Immorality of Biotech?
May 21, 2014
High Alert has taken a position that some investments are more palatable than others. But unlike the mainstream media, we don't believe that adhering to elite dominant social themes defines "morality." Ethical investing often focuses on "saving the planet" by s ...
Short Lesson in Schools of Ethics
May 21, 2014
I teach ethics, mainly business ethics, and here is a brief outline of some of the more prominent schools I discuss in class: A. Ethical hedonism is the view that everyone ought to seek to obtain as much physical pleasure in life as possible. This has appeal be ...
More on the Belgium Treasury Purchase
May 21, 2014
In response to our account of the mysterious large rise in Belgium's Treasury purchases, it was suggested that the transaction would show up on the Fed's balance sheet. However, the Fed is under no obligation to show the transaction. The $141.2 billion in Treas ...
Does the National Security Media Abet the Surveillance State?
May 20, 2014
This interesting Reuters article provides us with a quasi-review of Glenn Greenwald's new book, No Place to Hide, and concludes that Greenwald is occasionally overwrought. The real issue seems to be that Greenwald doesn't think much of "national security" repor ...
Global Warming: The Incredible Shrinking Meme
May 20, 2014
In the past few days we've read numerous articles about how the Antarctic is melting and that it is too late to stop it now. Being long-time analysts of dominant social themes, we didn't take the meme seriously even though it was repeated over and over again. B ...
Lessons from the Great French Inflation
May 20, 2014
Governments have an insatiable appetite for the wealth of their subjects. When governments find it impossible to continue raising taxes or borrowing funds, they have invariably turned to printing paper money to finance their growing expenditures. The resulting ...
Madness of Crowds Meme Debunked? One More Big Gov Justification Drains Away
May 19, 2014
It is common knowledge we need modern regulatory justice because of an inherent tension between the rights of individuals to be left alone and the rights of others not to suffer from the acts of a few. This is most famously summarized by a statement in Oliver W ...
Drug Legalization Around the World: The Dialectic Evolves
May 19, 2014
Let the dialectic begin. Inexperienced meme watchers might believe this report expresses the bureaucratic view of the UN regarding drugs: Criminalization should stand. But wait ... We think much of what is going on today is in a sense preordained. The marijuana ...
Tax Reform is Useless Without Spending Reform
May 19, 2014
Recently, Republican leaders in Congress unveiled a "tax reform" plan that they claimed would provide the American people with a simpler, fairer and more efficient tax system. While this plan does lower some tax rates and contains some other changes that may ma ...
Wendy McElroy on the New Normal, Victimless Crimes and Shifting Marijuana Laws
May 18, 2014
There is now a new normal and it is far worse than it used to be. Life itself has changed. Daily life is far more difficult and grim than it used to be, 20 years ago. There are so many ways in which life or the new daily norm has become more difficult. Consider ...
EU Plotted to Take Down Berlusconi – How Did We Know?
May 17, 2014
The UK Telegraph has published an article entitled, "EU officials plotted IMF attack to bring rebellious Italy to its knees." The crux of the article is that Tim Geithner, in his book Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises, reveals that top EU officials a ...
Desperation of the Elites: S&P Declares Climate Change a 'Mega Trend'
May 16, 2014
A few years ago, we began writing about how the big credit rating agencies had blown up. The agencies didn't foresee the credit meltdown of banks and financial firms in 2008. They had no idea that Lehman Brothers was bankrupt, that Merrill Lynch would have to b ...
Overturning the War on Drugs Part of Elite Strategy to Enable UN Millennial Goals?
May 16, 2014
This "article" includes a slide show that presents 25 public figures in various stages of climb-down regarding marijuana. The names include everyone from John McCain to Pete Holmes, the attorney for the City of Seattle. It's quite startling to read what people ...
Apocalypse Later: The BOE is Surely Not so Oblivious as It Appears
May 15, 2014
There is probably nothing more destructive to Western economies than interest rates that are held down for too long. That's what is going on currently and it will surely end horribly. In between, the Wall Street Party we've predicted will probably move forward ...
Why Departures of Three Top Female Editors Fails to Spark a Predictable Meme
May 15, 2014
Once upon a time, it was thought that female writers and editors might bring special qualities to newsrooms that male-dominated enterprises lacked. Additionally, it was thought that liberal-oriented (leveling) publications with a stake in creating "equality" mi ...
First They Came For The Porn Stars…
May 15, 2014
The Department of Justice (DOJ) program is called Operation Choke Point. The choke point is America's payment infrastructure through which an estimated $5 trillion in consumer purchases flow each year; more than eight million merchants use it to process credit ...
Search Result Privacy: Leviathan Confronts Leviathan
May 14, 2014
It occurred to us long ago that the price one paid for modernity was an increasing lack of privacy. But then we began to notice the "take downs" on YouTube, Yahoo, Google and other large Internet facilities. If so much information could be removed from the 'Net ...
Republican Establishment On Brink of Imploding Once More
May 14, 2014
In this past presidential election, the Republican Party establishment brain trust was so worried about libertarian Ron Paul that the party furiously staved off the congressman's bid before settling on the more establishment friendly Mitt Romney. Of course, the ...
Libertarianism Isn't Utopian
May 14, 2014
Although it is prudent to be skeptical about the entries found at Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia offers a sound account of utopias: "Utopia is a term for an ideal society. It has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempted to create an ...
Freedom Is Not Pragmatism
May 13, 2014
Here is an article about dogmatism versus pragmatism. The idea is that conservatives may be victorious in upcoming elections but even if they win they may lose. This is along the lines of what we have been explaining in the recent past. The Tea Party is more th ...
Tina Brown Unravels
May 13, 2014
Tina Brown, perhaps the most storied journalist of her generation, has posted an article about Monica Lewinsky that reveals a lot more about Brown than Lewinsky. The article is noteworthy, unfortunately, not only for what it is but for what it is not. It is nei ...
Lessons from the Great Austrian Inflation
May 13, 2014
This year marks one hundred years since the beginning of the First World War in the summer of 1914. The Great War, as it used to be called, brought great devastation in its wake. Millions of human lives were lost on the battlefields of Europe, vast amounts of a ...
The Great Deceiver — The Federal Reserve
May 13, 2014
Is the Fed "tapering"? Did the Fed really cut its bond purchases during the three-month period November 2013 through January 2014? Apparently not if foreign holders of Treasuries are unloading them. From November 2013 through January 2014 Belgium with a GDP of ...
Drum the Market, Ride the Wave
May 12, 2014
This article drums up the market. It makes the point that equity market gains in the first four months have been more limited than at any time since 2009 — "just 1.6 percent on the S&P 500." At the same time, bonds have done much better. It's time to sell, ri ...
Scottish Independence: More Important to the City or Scotland?
May 12, 2014
The greatness of a great land is long gone. Scotland is the home of dreary socialist cities glowering under a gray sky. And Scotland's fate will not really change whether it stays with Britain or goes with the EU and the euro. The choice is to be Europe or Brit ...
What Does the US Government Want In Ukraine?
May 12, 2014
In several eastern Ukrainian towns over the past week, the military opened fire on its own citizens. Dozens may have been killed in the violence. Although the US government generally condemns a country's use of military force against its own population, especia ...
Rob Kampia on Marijuana Legalization: An Idea Whose Time Has Come
May 11, 2014
We have legislation advancing on all fronts. We are supporting a 2014 initiative to regulate marijuana like alcohol in Alaska, and we are just getting rolling with our 2016 initiative to regulate marijuana like alcohol in Nevada. "We also plan to support simila ...
Oligarchy in the 21st Century … Get Used to It?
May 09, 2014
Interesting question and answer. Bernie Sanders' query is predictable but Janet Yellen's response is not. Alan Greenspan no doubt would have answered in a way that allowed for multiple interpretations. But Yellen took the question with little equivocation. Here ...
Uruguay's New Regs: Unreasonable on Purpose?
May 09, 2014
Uruguay legalized cannabis, but perhaps infighting between anti-drug warriors and tolerant "new wavers" has resulted in a setback – as the legalization is fraught with government control. Is this what we call "directed history"? Right after Uruguay legalized ...
Musings on Modernity
May 09, 2014
It is believed by many on the left today that our Constitution resulted from the Founding Fathers deceitfully conspiring to form a society ruled by aristocrats, and that the seeds for modernity's corruption lie in the Founders' elitist Constitution that now pla ...
The Cannabis Conspiracy?
May 08, 2014
This is a new dominant social theme. The old one would be: Drugs are evil. Why the change? Good question. We'll offer an answer toward the end of this analysis. But to set the stage: We've grappled with the issue of why cannabis is suddenly being legalized – ...
NSA and Stocks: Paranoia Outstrips the Meme
May 08, 2014
The NSA's comprehensive effort to create "dragnet" software aimed at investor data could give it the power to manipulate major stock markets comprehensively. That's the charge over at alternative media website Infowars, in an explosive article that was posted a ...
The Most Influential Man You Haven't Heard Of
May 08, 2014
One man has answered the question, "How much does it cost to buy the U.S. Senate?" The price tag and his name came to light as the only plausible explanation for an otherwise inexplicable event. Two months ago, an even more bizarre spectacle than usual took pla ...
Bloomberg's Tough-Minded Article About Economic Assumptions Exempts Own Behavior
May 07, 2014
So economic analysis is flawed by assumptions? Congratulations to Bloomberg for allowing this observation to be published. It is, in our view, an extremely credible observation. Interestingly, the editorial was apparently ignited by a book called Capital in the ...
Egalitarian Nightmares
May 07, 2014

Probably every era has its scary ideology and ours, I'm afraid, is egalitarianism. The most prominent thinkers – those hailed and being featured in major journals, by prestigious publishers, in respected forums of opinion and so forth – such as Amartya S ...

Gangster State America – Where Is America's Democracy?
May 07, 2014
Anyone who looks carefully behind the veil of words cannot find democracy in America. For years I have been writing that the US government is no longer accountable to law or to the people (see, for example, my book, How America Was Lost). The Constitution has b ...
Climate Alarmism – A Viable Strategy in the 21st Century?
May 06, 2014
The US government is reportedly about to release the grimmest study yet of climate change/gobal warming. Of course, these studies are not the same as "evidence." They are a compilation of data and opinion. The same sort of approach is used to create the famousl ...
Accountability: Multinationals' Biggest Problem?
May 06, 2014
This article makes an interesting point regarding Monsanto's evolution from a technological standpoint. It's "food for thought," so to speak. Instead of mixing different DNA together – which has brought the company much bad publicity and public distrust – M ...
The Inequality Trap Distracts from the Real Issue of Freedom
May 06, 2014
A new book by French economist Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, has recently caused a major stir on the opinion pages of newspapers and magazines. Piketty has resurrected from the ash heap of history Karl Marx's claim that capitalism inescap ...
Ukraine Heats Up … Will Control Slip?
May 05, 2014
The world is full of directed history and Ukraine is no exception. We've watched the propaganda mount and if the Ukraine promotion is any example of how conflicts get started and then enlarge, we can safely say that war is a racket – and a hoax besides. That ...
Bloomberg Editorial: Deepening the Ignorance
May 05, 2014
So Bloomberg suggests that schools only hire education-school graduates from the top third of their graduating class. These "super teachers" will improve the system. That's the idea anyway. Bloomberg claims this system works well in places like South Korea. Th ...
Why We’re No Longer Number One
May 05, 2014
Last week World Bank economists predicted that China would soon displace the United States as the world's largest economy. The fact that this one-time economic basket case is now positioned to surpass the US is one more sign of the damage done to American prosp ...
NORML Canada's Craig Jones on Cannabis – History, Legalization, Regulation and the Public Health Model
May 04, 2014
Does prohibition ever work? Craig Jones: Sure! It works for organized crime and organized repression and the ancillary industries that support these: guns, banking, security services, prisons, lawyers, etc. It grows their budgets, power and political influence. ...
Yellen: How High Is Up?
May 03, 2014
Janet Yellen is at it again, poormouthing the economy. In a Bloomberg article entitled "Yellen Fed Resigns Itself to Diminished Growth Expectations," we get the sad news that there isn't going to be a white-hot economy any time soon, certainly not in the US. An ...
Corporatism Finds Its Pied Piper?
May 02, 2014
This article proposes that it is necessary to confront the growing rage of ever-poorer populations with solutions that will produce increased income equality. Those at the "top" of society are obviously growing more uncomfortable with the increasingly evident f ...
Bloomberg Sees Misery in Silver … But Why?
May 02, 2014
So silver is suffering from its relationship to gold? That's a bit strange. Gold has been circulated by humans for thousands of years. Supposedly they may have found 100,000 year-old gold mines in South Africa. But the power elite, ever jealous of its paper pri ...
Future of Libertarianism
May 02, 2014
Marxists were notorious for infighting over the most trivial differences. One group would secede from another, reverse the word order of the group it had seceded from, and declare itself the new and pure group. The first group, the new group would declare to th ...
Thank Heaven for Gold Manipulators – A Sequel
May 02, 2014
My missive under the same title (Daily Bell, April 18, 2014) created quite a stir. As pointed out, the title is tongue-in-cheek and should be interpreted in the light of trying to find the best method to combat the fiat currency inflicted upon the population of ...
New Dow Record Expands Wall Street Party
May 01, 2014
So the Dow has hit a record high. We told you so. There is NO reason for the Dow to go "up" so much. The US is mired in a quasi-depression, Europe is in chaos, China continually faces a hard landing and the BRICs generally are struggling. Where is the growth to ...
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