Month: December 2010
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Swap Line Strategy – Saving the Euro to Save the Dollar
In a perfect world, European financial problems would stay in Europe, Japan’s would stay in Japan, Canada’s would stay in Canada, and so on and so forth … but today’s interwoven world economy will have none of that. An economic crisis brewing elsewhere in the world is sure to be lapping against American shores before…
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Are You or Aren’t You Printing Money, Mr. Bernanke?
Printing legal currency for use in the American economy is kind of a big deal, so it strikes us as deceptive when the the chairman of the Federal Reserve can’t seem to get his answers right to the basic question: Are you or aren’t you printing money, Mr. Bernanke? To get even more specific, is…
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The Not-So-Boring Definition of Money Supply
The term money supply is one of those phrases that, when uttered at a dinner party, is likely to trigger mass narcolepsy. Not been sleeping well lately and want to try an alternative to counting sheep? Imagine Alan Greenspan whispering the words “money supply” into your ear over and over. You’ll be asleep soon, friend.…
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Socialist Utopia Sweden Considers Banning Cash
Good old Sweden can always be counted upon to create a gag reflex in the throats of freedom loving capitalists everywhere. Earlier this year, that country’s Work Environment Authority (another mindless bureacracy that exists for the main goal of perpetuating itself) issued a report suggesting it might be a good idea to ban cash in…
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Wikileaks Assange – Traitor or Hero?
Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, probably feels like he kicked a hornet’s nest these days. More than a few US politicians and media mopheads believe he should be charged with treason or outright targeted for government sanctioned assassination. He certainly must have done something evil and heinous to draw that kind of ire. Well he did;…
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Treasury Bonds Mired in Eisenhower Flashback
The last time treasury bonds yielded such a pitiful return as they do now Elvis Presley was singing “Heartbreak Hotel” and President Dwight Eisenhower beat Adlai Stevenson for a second term in office. The year was 1956 and the average ten-year bond brought 3.02% on economic gains of 1.8%, consumer price gains of 3% and…
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We Created the Ineffectual Enemy OPEC
OPEC stands for Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and has been something of a thorn in the side of America, in the view of many, for a good long time now. At least since the oil embargo of the mid-1970’s. If only it were so easy to pin the blame for our energy woes on…
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Absence of Pandemonium Proves Decentralized Prices Work
The commies and socialists would love to have us believe that it would be a far better use of resources to institute price controls on goods set by a central authoritarian government. If that’s the case, why does history reveal that communist countries have long found it difficult to meet even the very basic needs…
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Fed Gives $9 Trillion in Emergency Bank Loans
We all knew about the $700 billion in bailout money given by the federal government to failing financial institutions in the midst of the recent crisis, but it turns out that was just chump change compared to what the Federal Reserve was doing at the same time with a mind boggling $9 trillion in emergency…
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Interest Rates and the Weather
While it might sometimes seem to be to the contrary, interest rates are not pinned to the back of a passing storm front, left free to wander hither and yon, directed not by the hand of man or beast. Actually there is an alleged plan behind what sometimes seems to be the infinitesimal and random…