Economy, spending, and debt
The Wall Street Journal has an editorial showing that we must keep pressuring the House—even Republicans—to do the right thing on spending. When congress has cut spending, say by killing an earmark, it’s been their practice simply to put that money back in the spending pot. So they got the headlines for “saving” money but [...]
A few days ago we posted this piece on trade negotiations between India and Iran. India imports 80% of its oil, and buys about 16% of its imported oil from Iran. This is a very important matter for India. The United States is pressuring India to participate in economic sanctions against Iran and that has [...]
Perhaps ever fearful that the world is on the verge of realizing that, not only can it live without central bankers, but that central banks are destructive of liberty and should be consigned to the dustbin of history, Kansas City Federal Reserve President Thomas Hoenig made this shocking statement on Wednesday: "The gold standard is [...]
...the end of the beginning. Reuters has just reported that Paul Volcker is leaving his post as head of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board. It has always been my opinion that Volcker was asked to lend his street cred to the Fed's reinflation efforts. His reputation as the inflation fighter who broke the back [...]
"We have to do it" came the cry. "It's the end of the world." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pD8viQ_DhS4 Guess what? We let them get away with it, and now they're doing it again. It's the ultimate trump card, trumping reason, trumping fact, and trumping consensus. They're going to play this trump card until we make them stop. This [...]
Obama, Bernanke, and Bill Dudley Shredded by Cute Bears http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGlX1BDgLBY&feature=player_embedded
It is so nice to be proven right through no effort on one’s part. In my last post, “Second Thoughts on Earmarks,” I said that it was relatively easy know who is requesting earmarks, and voila! Three groups are making that information available to all. According to the Washington Examiner, three groups; Taxpayers for Common [...]
The PhD-waving geniuses at the Fed have glanced up from their mathematical models and analytical brilliance and (re)discovered an age-old economic phenomenon: Reversion to the mean. Prices for assets tend to return to "normal" patterns after bubbles and busts. Housing prices in "real" (inflation adjusted) dollars since 1890: in 2004, Greenspan said The Fed couldn't [...]
Here are a few thumbnails; share them with your friends. It makes no sense at all to be paid a few dollars for a day's work when hundreds of billions of those very same dollars are effortlessly clicked into existence at the whim of one man. If I can pay you with money I created [...]
I’m a Redskins fan, so I know disappointment. Apparently, there are signals that the incoming Republican Congress is considering disappointing us regarding earmarks. All Republican senators and apparently a significant number of representatives signed a pledge before the election to forego asking for earmarks and/or eliminating the practice. (I could not find a list of [...]
In our previous post we began a report on how the Fed is using its balance sheet to protect TBTF banks and their investors. Now let's dig a little deeper into data recently pried out of the Fed by CONgress, under pressure from...us. Here's another must-read piece, at EconomicPolicyJournal.com, which tracks the bailout of Goldman [...]
What a difference a little disclosure makes. For the remainder of this article, remember this timeline: Bear Stearns crisis, March, 2008. Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, September 15, 2008. TARP, October 3, 2008. AIG Financial Products taken over by Fed and given $85 Billion loan: September 16, 2008. Wikileaks brings us this information via U.K. Guardian from [...]
