Criminalizing Cash Money sometimes goes “full politics”. Take poor Kenneth Rogoff at Harvard. He wants a dollar with a voter registration card, a U.S. flag on its windshield, and a handgun in its belt – the kind of money that supports the Establishment and votes for Hillary. Writing last month in the Wall Street Journal under the headline “The Sinister Side of Cash”, he noted that: “Paper currency, especially large...
Read More »Shrewd Financial Analysis in the Year 2016
[unable to retrieve full-text content]“Markets make opinions,” says the old Wall Street adage. Perhaps what this means is that when stocks are going up, many consider the economy to be going great. Conversely, when stocks tank it must be because the economic sky is falling.
Read More »How Does It All End? Part II
[unable to retrieve full-text content]Low Rates Forever, Nothing much is happening in the money world. The press reports that traders are hanging loose, wondering what dumb thing the Fed will do next. Rumor has it that it may decide to raise rates in September, or maybe November… or maybe not at all.
Read More »Trump’s Tax Plan, Clinton Corruption and Mainstream Media Propaganda
Fake Money, Fake Capital OUZILLY, France – Little change in the markets on Monday. We are in the middle of vacation season. Who wants to think too much about the stock market? Not us! Yesterday, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump promised to reform the U.S. tax system. His proposals are nothing new – simplification, fewer brackets, eliminate loopholes for rich people. But he also targeted the “carried...
Read More »The Fabian Society and the Gradual Rise of Statist Socialism
The “Third Way” “Stealth, intrigue, subversion, and the deception of never calling socialism by its right name” – George Bernard Shaw The Brexit referendum has revealed the existence of a deep polarization in British politics. Apart from the public faces of the opposing campaigns, there were however also undisclosed parties with a vested interest which few people have heard about. And yet, they have been...
Read More »Why Americans Get Poorer
Secular Stagnation OUZILLY, France – Both our daughters have now arrived at our place in the French countryside. One brought a grandson, James, now 14 months old. He walks along unsteadily, big blue eyes studying everything around him. He adjusted quickly to the change in time zones. And he has adjusted to the French culture, too – he likes gnawing on a piece of tough local bread. But when she has trouble getting...
Read More »Should the Government Give Us Infrastructure?
“Bad” Monopolies? An argument against absolutely free markets comes up often. What about so-called natural monopolies? So-called infrastructure projects (e.g. sewage plants) have high barriers to entry, and are a challenge to true competition. Therefore, if left to private companies, they would become bad monopolies. So it is best for the government to provide them. I think there are answers on several levels....
Read More »Props to Armani!
Champion of the Downtrodden? “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” – H.L. Mencken A mass e-mail has been making the rounds lately, and it is quite possible that many of our readers have already seen this. For those who haven’t, we wanted to share this moment of hilarity provided to us by Deep State candidate Hillary Clinton. It revolves around...
Read More »A Nation of Crooks?
Apples to Oranges Either we’re doing something wrong or we’ve got the most criminal population on the planet. – Senator and 2016 presidential candidate Jim Webb PARIS – The stock market seemed chilled last week, like a corpse waiting for an autopsy. Monday morning, gold was falling in Europe… as investors anticipate a higher dollar. But we’ll return to the markets, the dollar and the absurdities wrought by our...
Read More »The Central Planning Virus Mutates
Chopper Pilot Descends on Nippon Readers are probably aware of recent events in Japan, the global laboratory for interventionist experiments. The theories of assorted fiscal and monetary cranks have been implemented in spades for more than a quarter of a century in the country, to appropriately catastrophic effect. Amid stubbornly stagnating economic output, Japan has amassed a debt pile so vast since the bursting of...
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