“Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate farmers, liquidate real estate… it will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up from less competent people.”
[Read more...]Correction Fighting: How Feds Prolong Economic Depressions
May 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment
“Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate farmers, liquidate real estate… it will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up from less competent people.”
[Read more...]The “Corzine-Dimon Syndrome”
May 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment
On its best days, the American judicial process is a blindfolded Lady Justice — prosecuting the truly guilty and exonerating the truly innocent. On its worst days, it is a Water Wiggle — whirling around unpredictably, without any apparent connection to guilt, innocence, Constitutionality or the proportionality of alleged crimes to one another.
[Read more...]The “Corzine-Dimon Syndrome”
May 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment
On its best days, the American judicial process is a blindfolded Lady Justice — prosecuting the truly guilty and exonerating the truly innocent. On its worst days, it is a Water Wiggle — whirling around unpredictably, without any apparent connection to guilt, innocence, Constitutionality or the proportionality of alleged crimes to one another.
[Read more...]What Happens When the World Economy “Goes Japan”
May 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment
The Dow sinking.
Gold sinking.
Oil sinking.
Copper sinking.
Yields sinking.
We struggled with this, Dear Reader. We meditated. We prayed. We drank heavily.
And finally…we overcame the rank desire to say: “We told you so!”
As you know, Martin Wolf, of The Financial Times, is the voice of The Economics Establishment. All that is great and good in the field — which isn’t very much — is given voice by Wolf. Then, it is acceptable for policymakers, Treasury ministers, and central bankers, not to mention the people you talk to at cocktail parties.
[Read more...]What Happens When the World Economy “Goes Japan”
May 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment
The Dow sinking.
Gold sinking.
Oil sinking.
Copper sinking.
Yields sinking.
We struggled with this, Dear Reader. We meditated. We prayed. We drank heavily.
And finally…we overcame the rank desire to say: “We told you so!”
As you know, Martin Wolf, of The Financial Times, is the voice of The Economics Establishment. All that is great and good in the field — which isn’t very much — is given voice by Wolf. Then, it is acceptable for policymakers, Treasury ministers, and central bankers, not to mention the people you talk to at cocktail parties.
[Read more...]The Suspicious Growth of the Financial Industry
May 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Societies become more complex as they age. Each challenge…or opportunity…is met with a new rig of some sort. A tax. A regulation. An organizational fix.
As time goes by, these fixes act like friction…they slow the machine. They make it hard to move…inflexible and unresponsive. And over time, more people gain access to a fix — each lobbying group and special interest, each with his own bailout or subsidy…and each desperate to hold onto it.
[Read more...]The Suspicious Growth of the Financial Industry
May 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Societies become more complex as they age. Each challenge…or opportunity…is met with a new rig of some sort. A tax. A regulation. An organizational fix.
As time goes by, these fixes act like friction…they slow the machine. They make it hard to move…inflexible and unresponsive. And over time, more people gain access to a fix — each lobbying group and special interest, each with his own bailout or subsidy…and each desperate to hold onto it.
[Read more...]
“Jon Corzine – What’s Going On?”
It pays to be rich, powerful and a Democrat with friends in Washington. While Anna Gristina, a Connecticut mother accused of being a New York “madam” sits in a cell on Riker’s Island, Jon Corzine, the former CEO of MF Global sits at home in his New Jersey mansion. MF Global had been a publically traded securities firm with $40 billion in assets, but with liabilities even larger, filed for bankruptcy late last year, after being accused of co-mingling customer funds with its own, a flagrant violation of securities law.
[Read more...]