Tag Archives: On Economy

Gross Regulatory Overburden Corporate life in America these days is fraught with tedium.  First the MBAs imposed their silly six sigma processes and reduced workers to mere widgets. Then the regulators went through and squashed out any fun that remained. Gone are the days when shrewd eccentrics could get rich using techno-babble to hawk the Turbo Encabulator.  Alas, there are rules and regulations stymieing all...

Stumped by the Bust In the slump of a cycle, businesses that were thriving begin to experience difficulties or go under. They do so not because of firm-specific entrepreneurial errors but rather in tandem with whole sectors of the economy. People who were wealthy yesterday have become poor today. Factories that were busy yesterday are shut down today, and workers are out of jobs. Businessmen themselves are confused...

Illusory Riches, Obvious Impoverishment I address this essay to two groups. One group is those among the liberty movement, who believe that there’s nothing wrong with inequality. These are often Objectivists, who unknowingly defend a regime that artificially suppresses working people. The other group is those among the Left who still call themselves liberals. They say they don’t like inequality, but nevertheless...

India’s prime minister Nahendra Modi, author of the recent overnight currency ban Photo credit: indiatimes.com - Click to enlarge Chaos in the Wake of the Ban Here is a link to Part 1, about what happened in the first two days after India’s government made Rs 500 (~$7.50) and Rs 1,000 (~$15) banknotes illegal. They can now only be converted to Rs 100 (~$1.50) or lower denomination notes, at bank branches...

Mini-Panic Over Inflation After Trump’s Election Victory We have witnessed truly astonishing short term market conniptions following the Donald Trump’s election victory. In this post we want to focus on one aspect that seems to be exercising people quite a bit at present, namely the recent surge in  inflation expectations reflected in the markets. Will we have to get those WIN buttons out again? A 1970s “whip...

US Citizens Giving the Finger to Globalist Statist Elites – Big Time Back in late August we posted something about Mr. Trump’s chances probably being a lot better than was generally assumed (see: US Presidential Election – How Reliable are the Polls?). You know what the say about a headline that ends in a question mark; most often, the answer to the question is “No”. And so it was in this case – the polls were not...

India’s Government Makes Banknotes Worthless by Decree Overnight As I write this in the morning of 9th November 2016, there are huge lines forming outside gold shops in India — and gold traded heavily until late into the night yesterday. Depending on who you ask, the retail price of gold has gone up between 15% and 20% within the last 10 hours. At some places, it was sold for as much as US$ 2,294 per ounce. That is,...

Can Saving Possibly “Undermine Economic Growth”? In his speech at the New York Federal Reserve of New York on October 5, 2016, the Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer has suggested  that a visible decline in the natural interest rate in the US could be on account of the world glut of saving. According to Fischer, both increased saving and reduced investments have potentially significantly lowered the...

Is Stagflation a Potential Threat? The Incrementum Fund held its quarterly advisory board meeting on October 3 (the transcript can be downloaded below). Our regular participants – the two fund managers Ronald Stoeferle and Mark Valek, advisory board members Jim Rickards, Frank Shostak and yours truly –  were joined by special guest Grant Williams this time. Many of our readers probably know Grant; he is the author of...

  Only Sell Stocks in Recessions? We were recently made aware of an interview at Bloomberg, in which Tony Dwyer of Cannacord and Brian Wieser of Pivotal Research were quizzed on the recently announced utterly bizarre AT&T – Time Warner merger. We were actually quite surprised that AT&T wanted to buy the giant media turkey. Prior to the offer, TWX still traded 50% below the high it had reached 17 years ago. The...