From Huffpo: REYKJAVIK, Iceland — Iceland's former Prime Minister Geir Haarde has been referred to a special court in a move that could make him the first world leader to be charged in connection with the global financial crisis. After a heated debate Tuesday, lawmakers voted 33-30 to refer charges to the court against Haarde [...]
Or is it too late? One of the few pleasures of being an "outsider" financial pundit is watching your "mainstream" brethren (finally) abandon their orthodoxies. I have always believed, and have said to anyone who would listen, that the reason we are in this mess is because there is a critical mass of "economic thinkers" [...]
...remaining original member of the crack White House Economics Team. Bloomberg is reporting that Larry Summers is expected to quit his post as director of the president's National Economics Council after the November elections. Other members who've abandoned ship include Peter Orzag, who paddled away after announcing his resignation in June, and Christina Romer, who [...]
Top Ten Reasons Why Congress Hates the Tea Party & Patriot groups (and why you should register for the Oct. 8-9 Virginia Tea Party Patriots Convention at www.vateapartyconvention.com): 10. Most Tea Party & Patriot group supporters actually work for a living, and it’s human nature not to like people who are so very different from [...]
One of the enduring legacies (hangovers, really) from the Great Depression is the notion that the government can and should actively manage the economy. Schoolchildren still are taught, and most of us still believe, that Comrade Roosevelt's massive government programs were instrumental in ending the Great Depression. The fact is that nothing could be further [...]
Government employees are paid with tax money. When the economy is booming, so are tax revenues. What does government do with extra tax money? Return it to the people? Heavens no! They hire more government employees! When we're in the middle of a financial bubble, we think we can afford all sorts of things we [...]
On June 2nd, 3rd and 4th, respectively, I reported a growing chorus of financial pundits were going on record and warning of a coming sovereign debt crisis. Most of you are aware of the G-20 meeting that is closing in Toronto tonight. The G-20 members are a self-appointed group of governments and various government agency, [...]
(Data sources are US CBO and Federal Reserve) The chart above (click, then click again to enlarge) shows three data sets: 1) in red, the federal budget deficit; 2) in dark blue, US Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the supposed size of the US economy; 3) in highlighted light blue, shows what US GDP would be [...]
Far from being an effective measure that protects anyone but the banks, the Senate's Financial Reform Bill is itself a testament to the power of money. Two thousand banking lobbyists descended on Washington to ensure that any effective restrictions on banks' power and guaranteed profitability were stripped away. They succeeded. The bill does virtually nothing [...]
For quite a number of years, many decades in fact, members of the Austrian School of Economics have been trying to convince Western governments that the Keynesian fiscal path they'd embraced could only end in a disaster of insolvency that devolved into a currency collapse. In 1940 in his landmark text Human Action Ludwig von [...]
Let's talk about economics. In fact, let's call this Econ 101. But I'm not an economist, so this is a layman's view. The first part of this essay is preaching to the choir for Tea Partiers, but it's important to the later parts, so bear with me. In order for wealth to be available for [...]
A recent article by Charles Schwab merits our attention: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303429804575149633264117248.html In February 2006, when Ben Bernanke was first sworn in as chairman of the Federal Reserve, the federal-funds target rate stood at 4.5%. That same year, the average yield on a one-year certificate of deposit was 5.4%. A retiree who diligently saved for a lifetime [...]
