Posted tagged ‘The Fed’

« AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS ADDICT home page
« Older Entries

Must Read “Leftovers”

September 14, 2016

ARE CENTRAL BANK SCHEMES COMING TO AN END?

Investors Are Thwarting The Bank Of England’s Latest QE Scheme, by George Pickering, at mises.org. What is the next step for central planners when people won’t go along with their original plans?

The Bank Of Japan Has Nationalized The Japanese Stock Market, at zerohedge.com. The Bank of Japan is using printed money to prop up the Japanese Stock market. Nothing is real.

Bullard’s Bubble Warning: “I could See This Getting Away From Us”, at zerogedge.com. St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said the unintended consequences of Fed policy could be asset bubbles. I contend that asset bubbles are the intended consequences of Fed money printing and low-interest rates.

Fed Vice-Chairman Admits Fed Sponsors Wealth Inequality, at zerohedge.com. Stanley Fisher admits that negative interest rates hurt savers although negative rates seem to work in today’s world. Hey Stan, negative interest rates seem to work, in the world you created. That’s because they are the nest step after a decade of zero interest rates. The Fed’s  ZIRP policy helps banks and the equity markets at the expense of the rest of us.

The Importance Of Interest Rates, by Emile Woolf, at misesca. Interest rates reveal the time preference of individuals. This means people are consuming less now and saving more for future consumption, or they are consuming more now and saving less for future consumption. This “less” that individuals are willing to save or consume are real resources. Real resources are scarce. They have to be rationed between present consumption and future consumption. Interest rates coordinate what will be produced now for present consumption and what will be saved now for the production of future consumption. Any attempt by the Fed to artificially set interest rates sends false signals through the production process about the availability or unavailability of scarce resources. Present and future production is no longer coordinated according to the reality of individuals time preferences. It is miscoordinated by edicts of the Fed. Can the members of the fed possibly know the subjective and ever-changing time preferences of hundreds of millions of individuals in the market? Free market interest rates are the only way this time preference knowledge can be sent through the market to work its magic of coordination. The hubris of Fed members isn’t a replacement for this knowledge.

The Fed Launches New Facebook Page, by Ryan McMaken, at mises.org. Now that people are starting to realize the Feds policies aren’t working, the Fed is going to spout propaganda on their new Facebook page. Although this experiment in social media may be backfiring looking at some of the comments about their posts. Here is an example from the article: “Can you guys please help me get some of the QE? I’m trying to buy 16 cars, 4 houses, 2 jets and a yacht,” one commenter wrote. “I swear it will stimulate the economy. I’ll spend it all and cycle it back. I know velocity needs to pick up so I’ll  make sure to pay lots of models to live in my houses and travel with me. Thanks Fed! You are such a moral and upstanding institution!” They’ve made a living working in secrecy, they should stick to it.

Advertisement

Categories: Leftovers
Tags: , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Some Econ. Homework

June 22, 2016

The Fed Has Whiffed Again: Massive Monetary Stimulus Has Not Helped Labor, by David Stockman, at davidstockmanscontracorner.com. The Feds injection of 4 Trillion electronically printed dollars into the economy hasn’t produced a return worth that kind of “investment”. Fewer workers working fewer hours means less is being produced. Just because you print money doesn’t mean goods and services are being produced. It only means goods and services are being demanded by using money not backed by any production. Say’s law is being shown to be true.

“Say’s Law can be explained in the following terms:”

1) “The way that a buyer demands a good is by supplying a different good.”

2) “The supply of one type of good constitutes the demand for other, different goods.”

3) “The source of demand is production, not money. Money is only a temporary parking place for past production.”

“In the modern economy with division of labor, most of us demand goods when we supply our labor. I work as a software engineer. I supply my labor writing computer software. And from that supply I am able to demand other goods, such as coffee.”

Pity The Poor Central Bankers: Playing Masters Of The Universe Is No Longer Fun, by Charles Hugh Smith, at oftwominds.com. Here is an excerpt from the article: “Central Banks can create free money for financiers, but they can’t move the needle of the real economy, except to distort and cripple it with perverse incentives to gamble borrowed money on malinvestments and skimming operations…….as former Master of the Universe Ben Bernanke noted: “higher stock prices will boost consumer wealth and help increase confidence, which can also spur spending (that) will lead to higher incomes and profits that, in a virtuous circle, will further support economic expansion.”

I guess former Master of the Universe Ben Bernanke has never read Say’s Law: “The Source of demand is production, not money. Money is only a temporary parking place for past production.”

Printing money distorts the pricing system. Market discovery of prices (not Fed manipulated prices) is how information about how much to produce and consume is transmitted to producers and consumers in a free market. The interest rate is the most important of these discoveries, because interest rates coordinates production across time. We live in a world where resources and capital have misallocated for the last decade plus. The cure is to quit printing money and allow the market to set interest rates. What are the odds?

The Fed Pours Water On The Job-Growth Hype, by Ryan McMaken, at mises.org. The administration and the media has been telling us how good the economy has been doing. I guess the Fed hasn’t received the memo. The Fed would normally raise interest rates if the economy is doing well because it would be afraid of it overheating.  The Fed will adjust its monetary policy to weather they think the economy is too hot, or too cold, or just right. The fact that the Fed has raised the interest rate once by a 1/4 point since they lowered it to near zero in 2008 tells us everything about what the Fed thinks of the economy. So where has most of the $4 trillion in printed money ended up? If you say in the financial markets to prop up asset prices, in order to help banks, go to the head of the class. Do you think these false stock prices can stay afloat without more printed money???

Central Banks Are Wrong About Inflation and Deflation, by Frank Shostak, at mises.org. Let’s go to Murray Rothbard writing in Man Economy And State for the definition of inflation and deflation.

ROTHBARD: “The process of issuing money beyond any increase in the stock of specie, may be called inflation. A contraction in the money supply outstanding over any period, (aside from a possible net decrease in specie) may be called deflation. Clearly, inflation is the primary event and the primary purpose of monetary intervention. There can be no deflation without an inflation having occurred in some previous period of time.”

“Movements in the  supply-of-goods and in the demand-for-money schedules are all the results of voluntary changes of preferences on the market. The same is true for increases in the supply of gold or silver. But increases in fiduciary or fiat media (printed money) are acts of fraudulent intervention in the market, distorting voluntary preferences and voluntarily determined pattern of income and wealth. Therefore, the most expedient definition of inflation is one we have set forth above: an increase in the supply of money beyond any increase in specie.”

“The absurdity of the various governmental programs for “fighting inflation” now becomes evident. Most people believe that government officials must constantly pace the ramparts, armed with a huge variety of “control” programs designed to combat the inflation enemy. Yet all that is really necessary is the government and the banks (nowadays controlled almost completely by the government) cease inflating. The absurdity of the term “inflationary pressure” also becomes clear. either the government and banks are inflating or they are not; there is no such thing as “inflationary pressure”.”

CONCLUSION

Let’s not be fooled by the “Masters of the Universe’ when it comes to monetary policy and interest rates. With a little bit of reading on the topic, you could come up with the policy for fixing our economic problems. That policy would be to quit electronically printing counterfeit money and allow the market to set the interest rates. The solution is very simple but it is not easy. Why?  Because of the Fed’s previous inflationary policy, the resulting recession that would occur when we implement the cure would be politically difficult for politicians and the Fed to let happen. They have been trying to keep the correction from happening since 08, but at some point economic reality will correct all the Feds previous money printing, and it won’t be pretty.

Categories: Econ. 201
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Government: Is It Ever Big Enough? by Prager University

April 26, 2016

Will Government ever stop its intrusion into our lives?

How can the growth of Government be stopped?

Here some excerpts from the video.

“A government powerful enough to give you everything you want, will also necessarily be powerful enough to take away everything you have. Including your freedom. Government power must be limited because the alternative is unlimited Government.”

(Modern day) “Liberals believe that if there is a societal problem they believe the best solution is a new Government program. If it fails to achieve its goal, which it invariably does, the solution is a bigger Government program – More – and when does more become enough? The honest answer is NEVER“.

SHACKLE  THE GOVERNMENT TO SOUND MONEY

The Constitution was supposed to control the size of government. Since “the Constitution is no threat to our current form of government,” as Joseph Sobran has said, the only way to shrink Government is to get back to sound money. As long as Government can fund itself via The Fed’s electronically printed counterfeit money, there isn’t much that can be done. Cutting the size and scope of government is the real solution to the problem, but we all know that shrinking government is almost impossible because of our political process. No matter who gets in control of congress and/or the presidency, government keeps growing.  In this article by Paul-Martin Foss titled, Sound Money And Fiscal Policy (read here at mises.org), he talks about the relationship between the growth of government and a central banks ability to print money. Here are some excerpts from the article.

“Sound money….. is the most important check on government spending. If money is sound, meaning that the government cannot inflate the money supply at will, then government spending will be limited. Remember that governments can fund their operations through three methods: 1.) Taxation; 2.) Bonds, or borrowing; 3.) Inflation.”

“Taxation is self-limiting because at higher tax rates there will be massive tax avoidance and tax revenues will fall, or the government might be voted out or overthrown if people are angry enough. Bonds have to be repaid, which comes from future taxation, so we are back to the self-limiting aspect of tax funding. Bonds also require interest payments, and if a government isn’t creditworthy then the interest payments may make borrowing money prohibitively expensive.”

“This leads us to the third and preferred method, inflation. By creating more money, the government decreases the value of each monetary unit. But it normally does so in a slow enough manner as to be barely perceptible to the average person. And where does this newly-created money go? Why, to the government’s coffers, of course. There it gets spent on wars, welfare, and other boondoggles. In the meantime, the newly-created money causes the prices of goods to increase, driving up the cost of living for the average person. In this way, inflation is a stealth tax. Its effects are just as insidious as direct taxation in that it takes money from citizens and deposits it into government coffers, but it does so in such an imperceptible way that very few people realize that they are being fleeced. That allows governments to spend far more money than they otherwise would be able to by relying on taxes and borrowing alone, which is why governments prefer it.”

Sound money and the Fed are subjects not many people had heard about, let alone understood, until Ron Paul shed light on them during his run for president. More people have to understand the concept of sound money, on the one hand, and how the Federal Reserve produces counterfeit fiat money on the other, if there is any chance of reigning in Leviathan.

 

Categories: Government and Politics
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 2 Comments

Must Reads For The Week 4/16/16

April 16, 2016

I HATE POLITICS!

Donald Trump Blasts Colorado GOP For ‘Corrupt System’ In Picking Delegates, at foxnews.com. Here are a couple of comments. If you are going to play in the political arena, you have to know all the rules in order to compete against the people who do know the rules. It doesn’t matter what you think of the rules, because you are not in a position to change them. I’ll use a golf analogy to explain Colorado, because Donald Trump plays golf.

Trump is playing Cruz in a match and on a par 4 Trump hits his tee shot in the fairway and Cruz hits his tee shot in a water hazard. Trump hits his second shot on the green. Under the rules, Cruz can play his ball from the water hazard with no penalty, play another ball from the tee with a 1 stroke penalty, drop a ball two club lengths from where his ball last crossed the hazard and play it form there with a 1 stroke penalty, drop a ball behind the hazard as far back as he wants as long as he keeps it in line with the flag and the point where his original ball last crossed the hazard (and you thought delegate rules were complicated) with a 1 stroke penalty. Cruz decides on the fourth option. He drops his ball 150 yds from the green which is his perfect 7 iron distance. He hits his third shot to two feet and taps in for par. Trump three puts for a bogey. Trump now complains the the rules pertaining to water hazards are corrupt. He says it isn’t fair that someone can hit it in the water and win the hole. Cruz knew the rules and used what he thought was his best option. He didn’t cheat. He played within the rules.

What if this situation was reversed and Trump hit his ball in the hazard. He than plays his third shot from the tee because not only does he not know all the rules, the caddie he hired doesn’t know the rules. After he loses the hole he complains the rules are convoluted and impossible to understand. The rules are set up so golf insiders have the advantage. The rules about hazards, water hazards, lateral hazards and out of bounds should all be the same. These rules of golf are set up so golf insiders have the advantage.

If you’re playing a competitive game (which is what politics is) you must first know the rules of the game so you don’t lose because of what some would consider a ‘loophole’. The truth is either Trump didn’t know the rules, in which case he isn’t the winner he thinks he is. He didn’t know the rules and is just trying to spin his way out of his ignorance. Or he did know the rules and decided the cost of doing what Cruz did in Colorado was to high compared to the political hay he could make by complaining about the rules after the fact. The truth is Cruz used the rules to his advantage and Trump didn’t. If you want the rules changed you have to figure out a way to use the existing rules to get in positions of power. When you get enough like minded people in these positions, you will now be able to  change the rules. The establishment became the establishment through this process. The rules are written to protect the position of the status quo by making it difficult for outsiders to overthrow them. The only way to change the status quo party system is through the electoral process. Unfortunately this change is slow and incremental which means non political people get burnt our and lose interest.

‘Equal Pay Day’ This Year Is April 12; ‘Equal Occupational Fatality Day’ Will Be In 2027, by Mark J. Perry, at carpediemblog. The gender pay gap is another political scam. Since politicians continue to think they can gain by politicizing this issue, it is apparent that we haven’t done enough to educated the ignorant. Educating the ignorant isn’t a one time and your done proposition because our education system is constantly producing new generations of ignorant citizens.

Quotation Of The Day, On The Real Minimum Wage Of $0.00 An Hour, by Mark J. Perry, at carpediemblog. Here is another issue that is a winner for politicians and a loser for minimum wage workers. Here is all you need to know about minimum wage. Less is demanded at a higher price than a lower price. This includes labor. Quote from the article by Thomas Sowell: “Unfortunately, the real minimum wage is always zero, regardless of the laws, that is the wage many workers receive in the wake of the creation or escalation of a government-mandated minimum wage, because they either lose their jobs or fail to find jobs when they enter the labor force.” Read Minimum Wage Laws Create Unemployment and Income Inequality Part II: Increase The Minimum Wage and The New, Old, Buzz Words, “Income Inequality“.

Union Leaders Champion Higher Minimum Wages But Support Loopholes To Exempt Union Workers, by Mark J. Perry, at carpediemblog. Do as I say not as I do! Unionized hotels in L.A. have been granted an exemption from paying the higher minimum wage that L.A. city council mandated. Excerpt from the article: “Critics see this as a cynical collusion between politicians and big-city labor interests. By making unions the ‘low-cost option’ for businesses seeking to avoid paying better wages, they assert, the exemptions are designed to drive up union membership – and revenue from dues – at the expense of workers.”

Campaign Lies, by Thomas Sowell, at jewishworldreview.com. From the article: “If you took all the lies out of political rhetoric, how much would be left? Apparently even less than usual this year…..The success of campaign lies depends ultimately on how willing the public is to be stampeded without bothering to stop and think.”

 RELIGIONS AREN’T EQUAL!

Canadian Newspaper Censors Refugee Abuse Of School Children, at tammybruce.com. Muslim refugees criminal behavior is happening all over the world. This is close to home. We are not exempt from this.

Gay Air France Attendants Refuse To Fly To Iran, Fear Executions, at tammybruce.com. Homosexuals are figuring out who they should fear. It’s not Christians who are carrying out executions.

ECONOMICS

The Fed Can’t Save Us, by Robert J. Murphy, at mises.org. Excerpt from the article: “Janet Yellen and her colleagues are stuck with a giant asset bubble that her predecessor inflated. If they begin another round of asset purchases, they might postpone the crash, but only by making the subsequent reckoning that much more painful…You don’t make the country richer by printing money out of thin air, especially when you then give it to the government and Wall Street.”

Cash Banned Freedom Gone, by Thorsten Polliet, at mises.org. In order for central banks (Government) to steal your money with negative interest rates, the Government must first ban cash. If negative interest rates are implemented and people still have the ability to take their cash out of the banks, Negative interest rates are useless.

Austria Just Announced A 54% Hair Cut In Senior Creditors In First Bail In Under New European Rules, at zerohedge.com. An example of government force being used to steal people’s money. I know…It can’t happen here!

THE DAY AFTER TAX DAY

“Brutus” And Our Brutal Taxes, by Gary Galles, at mises.org. One of our founders Robert Yates was a profit when he talked about the taxing power of the federal government over 200 years ago. His predictions are amazing.

101 Years Of The Income Tax, at zerohedge.com.

CARTOONS

 

 

Categories: Must Reads For The Week
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Must Reads For The Week 10/23/15

October 24, 2015

A Challenge To The GOP From Bernie Sanders: Put Up Our Shut Up On Capitalism, by Dan Mitchell, at freedomandprosperity.org. Sanders is correct for wanting reporters to ask Republicans: ‘are you a capitalist’. Socialism is government ownership of the means of production. Sanders and Hillary don’t want socialism. They want government intervention, redistribution and crony socialism. Capitalism is private ownership of the means of production. Republicans candidates think they want capitalism. But what they propose is varying degrees of government intervention, redistribution, and crony capitalism. It’s going to take decades of elections to replace politicians who have this mindset with people who understand free markets and liberty. Inch by inch.

Sanders, Trump, and John Maynard Keynes, by Hunter Lewis, mises.org. Sanders thinks our current Keynesian crony capitalist system is capitalism. Trump thinks our current Keynesian crony capitalist system is socialism. Their cure is more government intervention in different ways. Sanders wants redistribution of wealth, and Trump wants a mercantilist attitude about trade.

Donald Trump’s Contempt For The Free Market, at economicpolicyjournal.com. Trump wants to stop Ford from building an auto plant in Mexico by putting a tariff on the goods Ford will bring in from Mexico. Government regulations and taxes incentivized Ford to move the plant. So instead of using more Government force to create different incentives, why not get rid of the regulations and taxes that produced the original incentives?

My Letter To The NY Times re: My Advice To The ECB And The Fed, by Patrick Barron, at patrickbarronblog.blogspot.com. Excerpt from the article. “If the Fed wishes to prevent financial crises, it only needs to stop initiating them. The Fed’s hubris that it can fathom the proper interest rate for our vast and complex economy must rank among the greatest fallacies of all time. The Fed sees the world through the completely discredited Keynesian lens which posits that aggregate demand–what the rest of us know simply as spending–is the path to prosperity. Anyone who believes this nonsense need ask himself why he has not liquidated his own savings on frivolous consumption…”

Global Stocks Soar On Surprise China Rate Cut, by David Gaffen, at reuters.com. Is anyone shocked that global stock markets soared when China’s central bank cut interest rates and the European central bank said they will increase the size of its quantitative easing (electronically printing counterfeit money) program? How strong is the world economy when the central banks of China, Europe, and the U.S. have to lower interest rates and print money to keep it afloat?

The Cronies: Half Of All Export-Import Bank Benefits Go To 10 Companies, at economicpolicyjournal.com. The Exim Bank, backed by your tax dollars, finances transactions so foreign customers can buy from American companies. These are transactions that private banks wouldn’t make because of the commercial and political risks inherent in these deals. It’s easier to be risky when it isn’t your money. By the way, does this seem like a money laundering scheme?

A Tax I Can Support, by Per Byland, at mises.org. This just might work. Unfortunately politicians would never pass it.

Justin Trudeau Elected Canada’s Prime Minister; Young Liberal Star Compared To Obama, at mercurynews.com. How could this happen? Were Canadian citizens not aware of what has been going on South of their border over the last seven years? Oh wait! What about this article? Obama Campaign Team Hands Canada Over To Lib-Left, at canacafreepress.com.

Is The New Higher Seattle Minimum Wage Destroying Restaurant Jobs In Seattle? at economicpolicyjournal.com. The answer is yes. Because the law of supply and demand states: Less is demanded at a higher price. This includes labor.

Actors In Los Angeles File Lawsuit Against Actors’ Equity Over Wage Hike, at latimes.com. I guess a minimum wage increase is only cool when it doesn’t affect you.

Michigan Governor Signs Bills Reforming Civil Asset Forfeiture, theoaklandpress.com. Some good news for liberty.

Rhonda Rousey Shuts Down Feminist.

There’s a difference between merit and value. You don’t get payed for how hard you work. You get paid for the value you produce. Who works harder; a man with a shovel digging a ditch, or a man on a backhoe digging a ditch? It doesn’t matter. The real question is; who produces the most value?

 

Categories: Must Reads For The Week
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

0% Interest Rate x Eight Years = The Fed’s ZIRP Doesn’t Work

September 18, 2015

High above us in its ivory tower the Fed claims the ability to see what lies over the horizon, allowing it to dial-up just the right interest rate to steer our economy to a safe harbor. For eight years the Fed has dialed up the same interest rate of 0% and we are no closer to safe harbor than when we started. Which begs the question. Is the Fed actually in an ivory tower; or is it wandering around in a desert, riding its 0% interest rate camel toward the mirage of a robust economy that’s always disappearing right in front of its eyes?

I think the second scenario is what is actually happening. If the geniuses at The Fed don’t think our economy can handle a quarter point increase in the interest rate, what does that tell us about the strength of our economy. If they want to see what is causing our economic problems they need to look no farther than their zero percent interest rate policy. It is the cause and the effect of the problem.

JEFF DEIST: IN THRALL OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE

In his short article titled, In Thrall Of The Federal Reserve, Jeff Deist covers a lot of ground about the economic reality concerning the Feds zero percent interest rate policy. Here are some excerpts.

“Perhaps no economic pronouncement in history has been anticipated, discussed, predicted, dissected, and reported like the Federal Reserve’s momentous decision today not to raise interest rates..”

“This is not to say the hype is unwarranted. On the contrary, the decision to raise interest rates even just 25 basis points would have represented nothing less than the end of an era…”

“After so many years of the “new normal”, we have to be reminded just how extraordinary – and unprecedented – the Fed’s actions since 2008 have been…..these actions have set America on a hopelessly dangerous and unsustainable path…… placing so much economic power in the hands of a select few might not end well.”

“In The Theory of Money and Credit, Ludwig von Mises made the case more than 100 years ago – before the Fed ever existed – that monetary interventions cannot create prosperity:”

Mises -“Attempts to carry our economic reforms from the monetary side can never amount to anything but an artificial stimulation of economic activity by an expansion of the circulation, and this , as must constantly be emphasized, must necessarily lead to crises and depression. Recurring economic crises are nothing but the consequences of attempts, despite all the teachings of experience and all the warnings of the economists, to stimulate economic activity by means of additional credit.”

 

Related Article – If The Fed Is Always Wrong, How Can It’s Policies Ever Be Right? at zerohedge.com.

Related Article – The Role Of Interest Rates In A Market Economy, at austrianaddict.com.

Related Article – A Tornado vs. The Fed, Which Is More Destructive, at austrianaddict.com.

 

 

 

 

 

Categories: Econ. 201
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Observations From The Margin

April 30, 2014
Observation Tower

Observation  (Photo credit: mooglet)

The Federal Reserve electronically prints counterfeit money and loans it to member banks at zero percent interest. These banks purchase guaranteed investments, like U.S. T Bills, with this counterfeit money. When the bonds mature, they pocket the interest and pay back the borrowed counterfeit money. Why can’t you or I get a $100 million dollar loan from the Fed at zero percent interest, purchase 5 year U.S. T Bills at 1.6% interest, and after they mature, pocket $1.6 million after paying back the $100 million? Better yet, why can’t you or I counterfeit $100 million dollars, go through the above process, keep the $1.6 million of interest and burn the $100 million we counterfeited? Better yet, why can’t you or I just skip the 5 year process and counterfeit $1.6 million and use it immediately? The simple answer is, counterfeiting is theft and theft is illegal, except when the Fed counterfeits, then it’s legal. The truth is counterfeiting results in theft whether it’s legal or illegal.

This article titled, Alaskan P0lar Bears Threatened…By Too Much Spring Ice, leaves me scratching my head. I thought polar bears were threatened by melting sea ice because of global warming. Apparently if the ice is too thick, ringed seals, which are the polar bears favorite meal, can’t create the breathing holes they need to survive the frigid winter. The male seals mysteriously arrive in the early spring for the purpose of breeding, which is curiously about the same time the female polar bears are emerging from their maternity dens with their cubs, having not eaten for six months. So should I be for global cooling or global warming?

I read a story about 40 veterans dying after the VA  put them on a secret waiting list for the purpose of making the VA wait list times look better. Bureaucrats at the Government run VA decided that looking competent, as opposed to being competent, was more valuable to them than the lives of these veterans. Welcome to Government run healthcare. This is an example of death panels, and what we can look forward to as Obamacare is incrementally forced upon us. Death panels are nothing more than third-party bureaucratic decisions makers making trade offs under a different set of incentives and constraints than the patient and the doctor normally operate under. No one should be surprised by this, unless you are a true believer in the government’s ability to create a utopian world.

The EPA is going to regulate the greenhouse gases emitted when cows burp and fart (read here). I was very sceptical when I heard about this because I thought it was probably a parody from The Onion. I searched The Onion for any article about cow farts and there were none. Sometimes you can’t even make this stuff up.

The FDA is getting its regulatory foot in the door concerning E-Cigarettes. Health advocates and their puppets in congress want the FDA to go farther. But they shouldn’t worry, we all know this is the first goose step of many more goose steps to come. E-Cigs are a safe way for people who are addicted to nicotine to get their fix while reducing the chance of cancer. Shouldn’t the FDA and the CDC be promoting this safer way to inhale nicotine? Don’t cities and counties across the US have needle exchange programs? Isn’t the purpose of these programs to reduce the chances of getting HIV or hepatitis C while the addict enjoys the drug of his choice. Government prohibits safe addiction on the one hand, and promotes safe addiction on the other. What am I missing here?

 

Categories: Observations From The Margin
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Let’s Take A Look At Bitcoin.

May 17, 2013
The bitcoin logo

The bitcoin logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

QUESTIONS ABOUT BITCOIN.

Bitcoin has been in the news lately for a variety of reasons. Many people have never heard of it, some have but don’t really understand what it is, and others understand what it is and are excited about its potential to become the medium of exchange. Simply put bitcoin has evolved spontaneously in the free market as an alternative to paper money. The two most important questions that have to be asked concerning bitcoin are, 1) can bitcoin become money (the medium of exchange), and 2) will Governments be able to shut down the process of bitcoin becoming money? (more…)

Categories: Econ. 201
Tags: , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

A Look Over The Horizon At What Lies Ahead If We Continue Down The Central Planning Road.

February 8, 2013
Nebraska tornado, May 24, 2004 (DI02257) Photo...

Nebraska tornado, May 24, 2004 (DI02257) Photo by Bob Henson (Photo credit: AtmosNews – NCAR & UCAR)

Read this article titled, Greek Tax Hikes Backfire As Tax Revenues Plunge 16%, at Zerohedge.com, if you want to see what will happen in the U.S. if we continue to make economic decisions through the political process.

CENTRAL PLANNERS IGNORE THE FIRST RULE OF ECONOMICS

No matter how hard Government and politicians try to create a world of abundance, the reality that we live in a world of scarcity hits them square in the face. Their answer when their plans don’t work as advertised, is to ignore the reality of the first rule of economics, which is scarcity, and continue going ever faster down the same central planning road that created the problem in the first place.

CENTRAL PLANNERS WORK AGAINST ECONOMIC FORCES

As a Government starts its intervention, slowly at first, into the workings of the free market through regulation, and taxes, the economy will reach a point where it will not (more…)

Categories: Econ. 201, Government and Politics
Tags: , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

The Fed’s Policies Are Counterproductive.

February 4, 2013

Host Lauren Lyster interviews Jim Grant on The Daily Ticker in this video from economicpolicyjurnal.com.

Here is a quote from the article, “…the Fed intends to buy 85 billion, with a B, in securities every month. What you might ask is where does it get that money. It creates it, it didn’t exist before the Fed materialized it through the very humble action of a keyboard and a computer, that’s the way it does it. But notice that this money is coming into the system without any commensurate increase in production. This is money in search of mischief, and it is likely to find it. The Feds actions are counterproductive.”

If the Feds injecting 85 billion counterfeit dollars a month into the economy (QE3,4), since September, is considered counter productive, how much more counter productive was QE1 and QE2’s injection of 2.3 trillion total dollars since 2008. An even better question is (more…)

Categories: Econ. 201, Government and Politics
Tags: , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

« Older Entries