Long ago, before economic models developed their current levels of sophistication, it used to be that the goal of a government's economic policy was to bring prosperity to its citizens; in other words, to raise the general level of material comfort, while at the same time reducing the amount of toil required to attain that end.
However, due to the blather spouted by modern economists, success is no longer measured in those terms. Instead, governments simply look to p... (more)
In the last week there have been several interesting developments involving gold. The price of the yellow metal set a new record, breaking through the $1,300 barrier. Meanwhile, a German firm is preparing to install gold vending machines in the United States. The German firm won't be stocking the machines with gold purchased from European central banks, however, because they have halted a decade-long policy of gold sales.
The term energy encompasses a plethora of technologies, and each attracts the gimlet eye of Big Brother. In recent years environmental groups have been very successful in insinuating themselves into the halls of government so that today there is a revolving door between government and the environmental movement. And it's just like the revolving door between the government and other key industries, such as banking and the military-industrial complex.
Economic progress is the number one enemy of the state. The richer people are, the less dependent, and the poorer people are, the more dependent. Austrian economics should not be studied merely to understand the basics of supply and demand, Austrian economics is a philosophy and a field of work unto itself, when you understand real economics you understand everything, no amount of statist propaganda can confuse you or hide you from the truth.
Since two years of zero interest rates, $800 billion in fiscal stimulus, and the bailout of any business remotely viewed as systemically important haven't resuscitated the dead economy, now the tonic suggested is optimism. American business owners and consumers need to quit getting their daubers down and keep the sunny side up.
George Mason professor of economics Tyler Cowen believes concern over the collective mood is not just for psychologists anymore. Optimism and pessimism are... (more)
In 2010, any nation that has a weak currency has a very significant competitive advantage in global trade. A weak currency means that the products and services produced by that nation will be less expensive for other nations. Therefore other nations will buy more of those products and services. When exports go up, employment goes up and more wealth flows into the country. Alternatively, when the value of a national currency declines, exports do down, unemployment increases and less wealth fl... (more)
Oliver Stone's uber-villain Gordon Gekko is back in the new film Wall Str... (more)
I love the line, "I once said greed is good, now it seems it's legal."
Surely people realize that makes absolutely no sense? When has "greed" ever been illegal? Greed is an emotion, it's a relativist desire, how would you make such an emotion illegal, and how would you legalize it? It's so idiotic it's baffling.
The most "greedy" institution in the world is government, that's the only instution who can steal from people and call it taxes and say it's for their own good. That's the only institution in the world who can rob literally everyone in a geographic location from the wealthiest to the poorest to pursue their own selfish desires with other people's money. Stealing from your neighbor to give some bailout to your campaign donors at Goldman Sachs is greedy, not running some profitable business where you serve your customers every whim for the mere hope of profit.
I should also note, "voting" to "raise taxes" (aka steal from) "the rich" is another "legal" entirely greedy act which can be done by the lowest pleb thanks to the institution that calls itself government.
To quote Frédéric Bastiat, "The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else."
On the free market people need to give you their money voluntarily because they value your product more than the price you're asking for it, only when the exchange enriches them will they make the trade. With the government you just hold up a gun and tell them it's to help the poor (then spend the money to bomb some foreigners, of course). - Chris, InfoLib
HRN: What would you recommend that the Federal Reserve do differently?
Dr. Marc Faber: The first action Mr. Bernanke should take is to resign. If I had messed up the system so badly, as he has done, I would have to resign. He has talked constantly about the Great Depression and what caused the depression but the problem is that he really doesn't understand what caused the depression, which was also excessive leverage at that time. I have to stress that in 1929 the debt to GDP rati... (more)
Some days, it's embarrassing to be a professional economist. On Monday, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) officially declared that our recession had ended — 15 months ago. Yes, that's right, just as more and more analysts are worried about the economy imploding again, the NBER announces that the recession ended back in June 2009. The whole episode underscores the crudity of mainstream economics.
Just in case you hadn’t realized it or that it doesn’t seem like it, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the recession ended in June of 2009. You see they got together and had a conference call yesterday and decided that last June the U.S. economy turned positive.
Never mind that the U.3 and U.6 unemployment rates were 9.4% and 16.4%, respectively, in May of 2009, supposedly the last month of the recession ... (more)
Warren Buffett’s partner at Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Charlie Munger told students at the University of Michigan “You should thank God” for the bank bailouts. Without George W., Obama and Bernanke, civilization as we know it would have gone down the drain, making a comparison to Weimar Germany.
"Hit the economy with enough misery and enough disr... (more)
This week, after the Japanese yen had surged to a fifteen-year high against the US dollar, the Japanese government decided to intervene in the foreign exchange market. To great fanfare, the Bank of Japan initiated a vigorous campaign to buy US dollars, thereby stemming the rise of the yen and pulling up the greenback. The effects were immediate, with the yen falling an astonishing 3% on the day of the announcement. At a time when American politicians are growing increasingly vocal abou... (more)
For most Americans, the economic collapse is something that is happening to someone else. Most of us have become so isolated from each other and so self-involved that unless something is directly affecting us or a close family member than we really don't feel it. But even though most of us enjoy a much closer relationship with our television sets than we do with our neighbors at this point, it is quickly becoming undeniable that a fundamental shift is taking place in society. Perhaps you noti... (more)
