The figure that everyone has been waiting for: $600 billion. “In addition, the Committee intends to purchase a further $600 billion of longer-term Treasury securities by the end of the second quarter of 2011, a pace of about $75 billion per month. ” 10-year and 3-year rates immediately shot up on the announcement, which is probably not what the Fed wanted but reflects expectations of price inflation down the road... (more)
Krugman says we need $8-10 trillion in QE to help the economy, says China is evil for not wanting their currency devalued. Video from October 14, 2010.
... (more)
Richard W. Fisher, president of the Fed bank of Dallas, said last month:
In my darkest moments I have begun to wonder if the monetary accommodation we have already engineered might even be working in the wrong places. Far too many of the large corporations I survey that are committing to fixed investment report that the most effective way to deploy cheap money raised in the curren
The Federal Reserve is going back to Jekyll Island to celebrate the 100 year anniversary of the infamous 1910 Jekyll Island meeting that spawned the draft legislation that would ultimately create the U.S. Federal Reserve. The title of this conference is "A Return to Jekyll Island: The Origins, History, and Future of the Federal Reserve", and it will be held on November 5th and 6th in the exact same building where the or... (more)
Do you want to see something truly frightening? Just check out the 3 charts posted further down in this article. These charts prove that we are now in the biggest debt bubble in the history of the world. As Americans have enjoyed an incredibly wonderful standard of living over the past three decades, most of them have believed that it was because we are the wealthiest, most prosperous nation on the planet with economic and financial systems that are second to none. But that is not even close... (more)
Once considered the best in the nation, California's state parks are fall... (more)
Bleh, the way to privatize a park is to sell it to the highest bidder and split the proceeds among taxpayers. You don't set up some crony capitalist private-public partnership.
Is it run better by a quasi-private company?
Of course it is, but the last thing you want is to have an efficient government.
Do you want the IRS to steal from people more efficiently? Do you want the police to enforce all our insane laws more efficiently? Do you want the regulators and the EPA to enforce all their insane laws more efficiently? Do you want the military to enforce martial law more efficiently?
We'd all be in jail if government was actually efficient and actually accomplished what it set out to do. Government's incompetence is freedom's greatest ally.
This is the Koch's brand of libertarianism, it's just crony capitalism masked behind libertarian rhetoric. We need real private property and real privatization, not government leasing taxpayer facilities to the politically connected and yet still retaining control.
The government had no right to seize these properties and declare ownership over them in the first place, sell them at auction and return them back to the people, it's up to them what they decide to do with them. - Chris
This new ad is part of an ongoing communications program in CAGW's decade... (more)
Funny video despite the fact China is basically our biggest ally because they finance our empire and buy our worthless debt. We will, of course, default on all our debt to them, they are going to lose big on their investment (they already are). This idea they're some evil menace is total propaganda, China is on course to be the next America, if they hit a depression (due to the same idiotic government spending) the country could break up again and some places could become extremely free. - Chris
A sign in the front of a building on West 39th Street tells visitors that it’s the Unicredit Debt Resolution Center in Erie.
Once debtors got inside, they were fooled into believing they were in a courtroom with a judge, but the whole thing was a fake, according to a lawsuit filed by the Pennsylvania attorney general.
Team 4′s Jim Parsons reported that Unicredit America is accused in the lawsuit of deceiving, misleading and coercing hundreds of consumers into... (more)
Legendary commodity investor and hedge fund manager Jim Rogers recently pointed out that silver prices are 50% below all time highs.
He’s talking about the brief momentary highs of nearly $50 an ounce back in 1980. With silver currently selling for less than $24 an ounce, Mr. Rogers is technically correct. But priced in 2010 dollars, the inflation adjusted high for silver would be closer to $124.
So if you believe that silver prices will make new... (more)
An eerie calm has descended upon world financial markets as they await perhaps the two most important financial events of the year this week. On Tuesday, investors will be eagerly awaiting the results of one of the most anticipated midterm elections in U.S. history. On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve is expected to end months of speculation by formally announcing the details of a new round of quantitative easing. If either the election or the meeting of the Federal Reserve open market committe... (more)
Binghamton, New York – Most serious gold investors follow a basic principle: that gold is stable in value. Changes in the "gold price" represent changes in the currency being compared to gold, while gold itself is essentially inert.
This is why gold was used as a monetary foundation for literally thousands of years. You want money to be stable in value. The simplest way to accomplish this was to link it to gold. Today, we summarize this quality by saying that "gold is money." ... (more)
The world's monetary system is in the process of melting down. We have entered the endgame for the dollar as the dominant reserve currency, but most investors and policy makers are unaware of the implications.
The only questions are how long the denouement of the dollar reserve system will last, and how much more damage will be inflicted by new rounds of quantitative easing or more radical monetary measures to prop up the system.
In case you missed it, the #1 news story for this week (and the year) was the Fed’s decision to ask its Primary Dealers (PDs) for suggestions on how large and how long QE 2 should run.
The implications of this are vast. But the biggest ones are:
By understanding that money is simply credit, we unleash it as a powerful tool for our communities.
[...]The functional equivalent of a community currency system can be achieved using the national currency, by forming a publicly owned bank. By turning banking into a public utility operated for the benefit of the community, the virtues of the expandable credit system of the medieval bankers can be retained, while avoiding the parasitic exploitation to which private banking schemes ... (more)
This is pure socialism, it's not "new" and it's not a solution to anything.
If I didn't know any better I would think it's almost an insidious scam, the government's way of keeping their whole ponsi-scheme going by giving it some populist tinge.
The truth comes out in this line,"By turning banking into a public utility operated for the benefit of the community, the virtues of the expandable credit system of the medieval bankers can be retained, while avoiding the parasitic exploitation to which private banking schemes are prone."
In other words, collective ownership of the means of production, plain old socialism.
"...public utility operated for the benefit of the community"
Do you like your public utilities? Ours are insanely expensive and horrible. Horrible toxic fluoridated tap water, horrible socialist roads which are the most likely cause of death, horrible schools which destroy people's entire lives, horrible regulatory schemes, horrible taxes, horrible wars of aggression, it's too much to list. Everything which is evil is done by the collectivist "public," aka the "government" aka whatever gang of thugs deems themselves the state.
"...the virtues of the expandable credit system of the medieval bankers"
In other words, the virtues of inflation and a group of collectivists having total control to print all the money they want to fund their various socialist schemes.
"...while avoiding the parasitic exploitation to which private banking schemes are prone."
Marx's exploitation theory. No faith in freedom, no understanding of voluntarism, a full embrace of socialism and fascism.
Her book is the equivalent of a "get rich quick book" for socialists. There is no such thing as something for nothing, at least not when it comes to wealth production, printing money doesn't create one dime of prosperity, nor one dime of wealth, it creates more paper, nothing more. Just dressing socialism up in a different suit doesn't change it.
The funny thing is, this is basically what we have right now. The federal reserve was created under the same auspices, the only difference is it asks to be paid back and charges interest on it's loans. As horrible as a central bank is, the act of charging interest and not just giving the money away is a check on inflation. If the government just printed at will and financed whatever scam it wanted, the whole system would collapse practically overnight because it would be insanely hyperinflationary and blatantly obvious the money is worthless. (As it should)
This system is collapsing right now, we don't need another system of currency communism, we need to go back to a free-market banking system, we don't need to replace it with another socialist scam. - Chris
There has been so much discussion recently about "QE 2" that you would think the entire financial sector were about to embark on a transatlantic cruise. Unfortunately, they, and we, are not so lucky. In the year 2010, "QE 2" doesn’t refer to a sumptuous ocean liner, but a second, more extravagant round of "quantitative easing" – stimulus. In the past, this technique was simply called "printing money." As if the nation has not already suffered enough from the first round, Captain Ben Bernanke an... (more)
When discussing reserve currency alternatives to the US dollar, conversation almost inevitably returns to the International Monetary Fund’s “synthetic reserve asset,” the Special Drawing Right (SDR).
However, the SDR basket of currencies is noticeably antiquated in its design, including only the currencies of industrialized nations… namely British Pounds, Euros, Japanese Yen, and US Dollars. This week, foreign exchange manager Overlay Asset Management has announced a currency bask... (more)
A world currency would be the most hyperinflationary currency the world has ever seen. One of the only minor checks on central banks inflationary abilities is the fact people can move their money into other currencies, remove that check and everything goes. See this. - Chris
The mainstream media is full of happy economic news these days. The S&P 500 has shot up 16 percent since the beginning of July. Ford Motor Company just reported a profit that jumped nearly 70 percent in the third quarter. It was Ford's best third quarter performance ever and it was the 6th quarterly profit in a row for the company. Other major firms have announced earnings that have far exceeded expectations in recent weeks. Hooray! The pundits are proclaiming that the economic collapse is... (more)
