"Bunch of do gooders shutting down the last chance these people had."
This sentence is a rare moment of truth concerning the coming regulation (or shutdown) or the payday loan industry. It appeared in the comment box on the New York Times story. Otherwise, most comments were out for blood. Regulate them! Limit interest! Make them all suffer ... (more)
Janet Yellen channels Billy Flynn? Last week the Fed Chairwoman treated us to a master class of rhetorical misdirection which produced some memorable examples of doublespeak, including the soon to be classic "Just because we removed the word 'patient' does not mean we're going to be 'impatient."' But perhaps more surprising than her new heights of verbal dexterity was the market's euphoria at being so blatantly manipulated. Never has the ... (more)
When New York’s Superintendent of Financial Services first encountered Bitcoin, he evidently thought it was a way to build his reputation as a hangin' superintendent of financial services. (Doesn’t quite roll off the tongue like "hangin' judge," does it…) He sent subpoenas to everyone in the Bitcoin world and went on TV talking about "narcoterrorists." That was foolishness.
Unfortunately, he also hatched the idea of crea... (more)
Here’s a back-of-the-envelope calculation on how much the mandate to require ethanol in motor fuel costs consumers, and benefits farmers.
This article notes that in 2000 about 5% of the corn crop went to the production of ethanol, and by 2013, 40% of the corn crop was devoted to ethanol production. The increased demand for corn resulted in a doubling of the per bush... (more)
Big Gov and Big Biz. Are they holding hands, shaking hands, or boxing? It depends on the day and the issue. But while Big Biz hardly seems like a sympathetic character, Big Gov always has the upper hand.
Remember Arthur Anderson? Perhaps not. It used to be the biggest accounting firm around. Then the Justice Department went after it with little proof but lots of gusto. The megalith firm fought the law, and the law won (temporarily). The Department of Justice obtained a criminal co... (more)
A fascinating report by Finn Poschmann from the C.D. Howe Institute discusses the history of bank regulation in the U.S., Canada, and U.K. It explains the movement away from shareholder liability in banks, towards the current system where taxpayers are ultimately on the hook for a bank’s solvency. This leads to a situation of “moral hazard” where bank managers do not ... (more)
Wealthy Western countries are undermining good governance and social and economic development in poor, drug-producing countries by pressuring them to enforce prohibitionist policies that exploit peasant farmers and waste millions of dollars a year on failed crop eradication and drug interdiction programs. That's the conclusion of a recent report by the British advocacy group Health Poverty Action (HPA). ... (more)
On Friday, we learned that the official “unemployment rate” has fallen to 5.5 percent. Since an unemployment rate of 5 percent is considered to be “full employment” by many economists, many in the mainstream media took this as a sign that the U.S. economy has almost fully “recovered” since the last recession. In fact, according to the Wall Street Journal, some Federal Reserve officials believe that “the U.S. economy is already at full employment“. But how can this possibly be? It certainl... (more)
We refer to the dollar as a “reserve currency” when referring to its use by other countries when settling their international trade accounts. For example, if Canada buys goods from China, China may prefer to be paid in US dollars rather than Canadian dollars. The US dollar is the more “marketable” money internationally, meaning that most countries will accept it in payment, so China can use its dollars to buy goods from other countries, not solely the US. Such might not be the case with the Cana... (more)
Lord Jacob Rothschild has warned investors that the world is mired in the most dangerous geopolitical situation since World War II.
The 78-year-old chairman of RIT Capital Partners, a £2.3bn trust, used the organization’s annual report to caution savers that the focus of the firm would be the preservation of shareholders’ capital and not short term gains.
Rothschild said that “a geopolitical situation perhaps as dangerous as any we have faced since World War II” has... (more)
Here's some other libertarian havens that prove libertards wrong: North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela. Oh yeah, I almost forgot the late Soviet Union!
Honduras is a statist hellhole, that the leaders of the country want more money and therefor favor a few select "libertarian" policies (just as happened with Pinochet in Chile) doesn't change the entire framework of a society. - Chris
Cultural commentator Mark Dice returns with another video highlighting how the combination of the cult of personality and general ignorance can lead Americans to agree with any ridiculous statement one can think of.
This time Dice, donning his Obama t-shirt once more, has passers by agreeing with him that it is a good idea for the German Communi... (more)
The current issue of the Cato Policy Report (January/February 2015) contains a short article about a book by Zhang Weiying called The Logic of the Market: An Insider’s View of Chinese Economic Reform, which was originally published in Chinese (and said to be a best-seller in China in that form) and was recently translated into English. The author is the director of Peking University’s Center for Mark... (more)
