Thursday, August 27, 2009

Industrial production and unemployment

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Dress rehearsal for the last contango

It has never happened that gold was unobtainable at any price. It has never happened that all governments have defaulted on their debt obligations simultaneously.

Still, we have to explain the relevance of this to the credit crisis. It is no secret that the bonds, notes, bills, and other obligations of the U.S. government, or any other government, for that matter, are irredeemable. That is, they are redeemable in nothing but more of the same. For example, the bonds of the U.S. Treasury are redeemable in Federal Reserve credit, which is itself irredeemable and is "backed by" the self-same bonds of the U.S. Treasury. Why is it, then, that these Treasury obligations are in demand where one might think that redeemability is a sine-qua-non of issuing them? What makes people participate in this shell game? How can such a crude check-kiting scheme mesmerize the entire population?

Come to think of it, the sight of this Ponzi scheme would shudder the Founding Fathers of our great Republic.
Highly recommended.

Monday, August 24, 2009

The Grim Reaper Is Coming for The State

A series of countries in Europe confront bankruptcy, including a number of states in Eastern Europe and Italy, Spain and Great Britain in the West. State debt is also growing at an alarming rate in Germany and France. At the start of the week, the Taxpayers Federation announced that the national debt in Germany would increase by €140 billion in 2009.

...
The constitutional “brake on debt” which was recently passed by the German parliament means that the first priority of any future government will be drastic budget cuts. The promises being made by all of the parties taking part in the national election campaign will be consigned to the waste bin as soon as the votes have been counted on September 27.

The rhetoric about the end of the economic crisis is also aimed at confusing workers and forestalling social protests, while behind the scenes unparalleled attacks are been prepared on living standards and social benefits.
...all foretold by Standard & Poor.

Full report.

Friday, August 21, 2009

The Real New Math

"One man is a significant entity. A partnership halves that value. Three or more men, working together, diminish themselves to zero. Team effort is the stagnation of the race." --John D. MacDonald, On the Run.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

If you find something evil that wobbles, push it.

The gatekeepers can no longer control the flow of information. This has never happened in man's history. Gatekeepers still control the gates. But the walls have holes in them. These holes are widening.

The gatekeepers control accreditation. They no longer control content except where it is very expensive to do primary research, such as nuclear physics. In the social sciences and humanities, it's just about over.

When I think "Establishment," my mind goes back to Rocky III. Mr. T's character tells Apollo Creed, "you're going down."

If you find something worth posting, post it. Call this "post-it notes." It beats armed revolution every time.

Make a free online YouTube or Blip.tv course out of your favorite controversial topic. Imitate Salman Khan: www.KhanAcademy.org. (Note: Khan graduated from MIT and the Harvard Business School.) He did it with these low-cost or free tools.

In short, if you find something evil that wobbles, push it.
Full essay.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

FDIC is Now Bankrupt

Bank Failure Friday is in full swing. Tonight there were 5 more failures, numbers 73 through 77 on the year. In the biggest failure since WaMu, BB&T Takes Over Colonial.
Full report.

Monday, August 10, 2009

That which is seen only by a very few

"All managed markets—whether managed by
government allocation as under Communism or by
government sponsored central bank credit as in
Capitalism—are doomed to failure." --Darryl Schoon
The free market will be all that's left.

Don't believe it?

Just crack a brew and watch then.

Sunday, August 02, 2009

The Wave of the Future

"We've mortgaged the legislative halls," said an exasperated state Rep. Steve Yarbrough, a Chandler (Arizona) Republican. "That just tells you how extraordinary the times are.
Read.