economic and political philosophy
Debt at 500% of GDP?!?!?
Mish posts snippets of “an extraordinary interview by Kate Welling of Dr. Lacy Hunt, the chief economist of Hoisington Investment Management.” The original PDF is posted on John Mauldin’s site here. Not included in Mish’s snippets is this graph of total (public and private) Japanese debt. If you’re holding a hot beverage, you might want [...]
Fissures in the Land of Wa?
Fissures within Japan’s business community have been getting wider in the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake. And the situation is threatening to undermine the Japan Business Federation (Keidanren) – long the nation’s most influential business lobby. Some member companies are none too happy about Keidanren’s support for the government’s plan to raise the [...]
Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis: Premature Dollar Obituaries and Mainstream Economists’ Monetary Insanity; Keynes-Inspired Great Depression; Lessons Not Learned
One might have thought the Monetarists and Keynesians would have learned something from Japan. Instead, and in spite of debt to the tune of 230% of GDP, they came to the amazing conclusion “Japan did not do enough”. Two Rules There is never enough debt to satisfy Keynesians. There is never enough fiat currency to [...]
‘Fool in the Shower’ to Give Fed a Scalding: Caroline Baum – Bloomberg
Learned of Milton Friedman’s evocative image, “the fool in the shower” in this article, which Mish links to. I’ve underlined the truly astonishing part, for my busy readers’ benefit (don’t mention it!). You may need to read it twice (or ten times) to check you read it correctly the first time. Talk about double-take! What [...]
How the Private Bankers Are Using the Financial Crisis to Reshape World Government | Murphy
Bob Murphy’s talk is great background for what’s happening in the Eurozone. It provides some key economic facts and knowledge that allow you to make sense of news like this: Merkel Casts Doubt on Saving Greece, Insists ECJ be Empowered to Police Nannyzone; ECB insists on Profits on Greek Bonds; IMF Takes Tougher Stance; Greek [...]
Real life imitates art – India will buy Iranian oil with gold
In The Way to Freedom, Iceland abandons its fiat currency, shuts down its central bank and allows gold to be used as money. Iceland is then followed by Switzerland and (with a little armtwisting) China. The rest of the world immediately sees the sense of this and enthusiastically follows suit. No, wait! That’s not what [...]
Can we please move on?
Clearly this poor Irish journalist cannot understand Bureaucrat-speak, which the German official speaks fluently, despite being German. via Mish: Irish Journalist Hounds ECB Official Regarding Irish Taxpayer Bailout of French and German Banks
Financial repression
What is financial repression? Is this something that you need to know about and understand? It seems to be a way for the government to ensure there are enough purchasers of government bonds. But it also has a deadening effect on the economy as a whole. Why? First, let’s look at what financial repression is: [...]
Should Japanese Government Bond rates go up just two percent…
Remember that Japan believed the same thing — they allowed a debt bubble to build up and then tried to treat it with more debt. In the space of the last 20 years they’ve taken public debt-to-GDP to 200%, the highest of all “modern” industrial economies. Has their economy exited recession and returned to strong [...]
Tragedy of the Euro
How young he is! Philipp Bagus has written an excellent and interesting history of the Euro, which you can buy on the Ludwig von Mises Institute website or download for free from the same site. Read a summary of the interview on the GoldMoney site here. Here’s an excerpt: In this video Philipp Bagus, Assistant [...]
