Tag Archives: Debt and the Fallacies of Paper Money

Eternal Spendathon The Senate just passed a 500-page tax reform bill. Assuming it lives up to its promise, it will cut taxes on corporations and individuals. Predictably, the Left hates it and the Right loves it. I am writing to argue why the Right should hate it (no, not for the reason the Left does, a desire to get the rich). US Federal Debt, 1970 - 2017The Federal debtberg has grown beyond all measure since...

Style Over Substance There are many things that could be said about the GOP tax bill.  But one thing is certain.  It has been a great show. Obviously, the time for real solutions to the debt problem that’s ailing the United States came and went many decades ago.  Instead of addressing the Country’s mounting insolvency, lawmakers chose expediency without exception.  They kicked the can from yesterday to today....

Known for Being Terrible For the past few decades, Japan has been known for its stagnant economy, falling stock market, and most importantly its terrible demographics. Japan's Population by age, 1950 - 2065A chart of Japan’s much-bewailed demographic horror-show. - Click to enlarge Most people consider a declining population to be a bad thing due to the implications for assorted state-run pay-as-you-go Ponzi...

  Standing In Your Way Governments across the planet will go to any length to meddle in the lives and private affairs of their citizens.  This is what our experiences and observations have shown.  What gives? For one, politicians have an aversion to freedom and liberty.  They want to control your behavior, choices, and decisions.  What’s more, they want to use your money to do so. As this by now famous cartoon...

Peculiar Behavior In the last issue of Seasonal Insights I have shown that the gold price behaves quite peculiarly in the course of the trading week. On average, prices rise almost exclusively on Friday. It is as though investors in this market were mired in deep sleep for most of the week. Upon this I received a plethora of inquiries from readers regarding the corresponding moves in silver.  In response  examine the...

Economic Nirvana “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon,” economist and Nobel Prize recipient Milton Friedman once remarked.  He likely meant that inflation is the more rapid increase in the supply of money relative to the output of goods and services which money is traded for. Photo via mises.ca - Click to enlarge Famous Monetarist School representative Milton Friedman thought the US should adopt...

Early Warning Signals in a Fragile System [ed note: here is Part 1; if you have missed it, best go there and start reading from the beginning] We recently received the following charts via email with a query whether they should worry stock market investors. They show two short term interest rates, namely the 2-year t-note yield and 3 month t-bill discount rate. Evidently the moves in short term rates over the past ~18...

Incrementum Advisory Board Meeting Q4 2017 –  Special Guest Ben Hunt, Author and Editor of Epsilon Theory The quarterly meeting of the Incrementum Fund’s Advisory Board took place on October 10 and we had the great pleasure to be joined by special guest Ben Hunt this time, who is probably known to many of our readers as the main author and editor of Epsilon Theory. He is also chief risk officer at investment management...

Expensive Politics Instead of a demonstration of its overwhelming military might intended to intimidate tiny North Korea and pressure China to lean on its defiant communist neighbor, President Trump and the West should try to learn a few things from China. Photo credit: AP - Click to enlarge President Trump meets President Xi. The POTUS reportedly had a very good time in China. The President’s trip to the Far East...

Big Crunch or Big Chill Physicists say that the universe is expanding. However, they hotly debate (OK, pun intended as a foreshadowing device) if the rate of expansion is sufficient to overcome gravity—called escape velocity. It may seem like an arcane topic, but the consequences are dire either way. If the rate of expansion is too low, then it will get slower and slower until expansion stops entirely, then finally,...