inflation

,

End of QE? I Don’t Buy It

A new meme is spreading in financial markets: The Fed is about to turn off the monetary spigot. U.S. Printmaster General Ben Bernanke announced that he might start reducing the monthly debt monetization program called “quantitative easing” (QE) as early as autumn 2013, and maybe stop it entirely by the middle of next year. He …

,

Inside Ben Bernanke’s Doomsday Device

Where things stood at the close of last week: Dow down 105, gold up $9 an ounce. Nothing worthy of comment, in other words. Those who think the world is warming up should visit Edinburgh. It is a city made of stone. Yellow stone. Brown stone. Almost-black stone. Almost every building is built of stone. …

,

Is It Fixable?

In the 15th century, the highest standard of living in the world belonged to China. Places like Nanjing had reached the pinnacle of civilization with incredibly modern infrastructure, robust economies, substantial international trade, great health care, and a rising middle class. Across the globe, Europeans were living out short, mud-filled, brutish lives in squalid poverty, …

,

Money Debauchery Continues

Kings used to “clip” and “sweat” coins constantly to pad the government treasury. Coins would be called in and filed around the edges, with the resulting loose metal coined into new currency for the government to spend. This practice has gone the way of the buggy whip, with the Federal Reserve conjuring up billions from the ether with the ease of a keystroke.

,

Mellon vs. Geithner

Most of America has suffered since the crash of 2007. Property values plummeted, unemployment soared and remained stubbornly high, the use of food stamps continues to set records. Pension plans are going broke and municipalities around the country are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. All this five full years after the crash. A federal …

,

The House Is Still a Dump

“Half of the nation’s 40 biggest publicly traded corporate spenders have announced plans to curtail capital expenditures this year or next.” This is The Wall Street Journal further confirming the mounting evidence that the presidential election did not cure what is fundamentally sick. The supposed recovery of the last two years is the least convincing …

,

Gas Lines are Not Sandy’s Fault

It’s crazy in New York and New Jersey, and commentators are mystified. Hurricane Sandy was bad enough. That’s a natural disaster, and we are dealing with it. But then came the unnatural disaster in the form of the government’s response. This is where the real catastrophe begins. Check out the mess in New Jersey. The …

,

How to Protect Against the Evil Eye

In large parts of the oldest civilized region of the world, you will find in nearly every room a pretty blue charm that looks like an eye. It’s in the front entrance of homes, somewhere in every room, on boats, in airports, in restaurants, and built into the designs of everything from wallpaper to grocery …

,

Leaping toward the Keynesian Dream

The Fed’s latest inflationary scheme sounds like a technocratic innovation. It lowered the costs of currency swaps between central banks of the world, with the idea that the Fed would do for the globe what Europe, England and China are too shy to do, which is run the printing presses 24/7 to bail out failing …

//