I was explaining to my boss that firing me would not solve the company’s problems, as the corporate rot goes a lot farther than that, mostly due to the stupid Human Resources department hiring so many morons, a dismal fact I have proved over the years by merely asking each one, in turn, “Do you own any gold and silver to protect yourself from the horrendous inflation in prices that is guaranteed by the evil Federal Reserve creating so impossibly much money, and which will destroy the currency, the economy, and everyone who is not an owner of the aforesaid precious metals, to wit, gold and silver, or are you some kind of moron?”
[Read more...]Dice Have No Memory: An Introduction
April 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment
It was 10 years ago, or a bit more, that I began writing the Internet series called The Daily Reckoning. The collection of essays and short notes you have in your hands developed over the course of the years that followed.
When I began, I was ahead of the innovation curve. I was blogging before blogs had been invented. Day after day, I watched what happened in the world of finance, economics, and politics. And day after day, I found myself entertained. I merely described what I saw happening.
[Read more...]When the Government Should Do Nothing
March 31, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Gary North in his Reality Check newsletter penned the essay “Gold vs. Guns and Badges,” wherein he notes that “There are only two conceptual options in monetary theory: a full gold coin standard in which the citizens hold the golden hammers or a system of economic planning in which elite members of the planning bureaucracy hold the digital hammers. There is no third choice.”
[Read more...]Printing Money to Save the World
March 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment
The Dow rose 50 points on Friday. Gold rose too.
As we ended the week, the Dow was over 12,000…gold was over 1,400…and oil was over $100.
And all seemed to be headed up.
But there’s trouble afoot.
Housing in the US, the foundation of most household wealth in the country, has gone into a double dip…which could drag millions more homeowners underwater.
[Read more...]G-7 Coordinates Intervention to Push the Yen Lower
March 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment
The Bank of Japan got tired of the yen (JPY) setting record highs, and enlisted the help of the G7 to intervene in the currency markets and push the yen lower. This is the first time the Group of Seven nations have jointly intervened in the markets in more than a decade. The result of this concerted effort was a drop of over 3% for the yen, which had touched a record high early yesterday at 76.36 yen/dollar. And the G7 finance ministers stand ready for more intervention if needed. A statement by the G7 said “in response to recent movements in the exchange rate of the yen associated with the tragic events in Japan, and at the request of the Japanese authorities” it will intervene in the currency market today. The statement went on to say, “We will monitor exchange markets closely and will cooperate as appropriate.”
[Read more...]A Monetary Policy that Encourages Malinvestment
March 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Thorsten Polleit, of the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, penned an article in The Free Market newsletter of the Ludwig von Mises Institute titled “The Many Names for Money Creation.”
It starts off almost humorous, reading more like an interesting, mood-lightening sidebar to a banner article titled “We’re Freaking Doomed (WFD)!” as he notes that the dire economic conditions are such that “euphemisms have risen to great prominence. This holds true in particular for monetary policy experts, who are at great pains to advertise a variety of policy measures as being in the interest of the greater good, because they are supposed to ‘fight’ the credit crisis.”
[Read more...]
No Inflation in Sight
In response to the recent multi-month, multi-year and all-time highs posted by the Dow, oil and gold respectively, your suitably-entertained editor last week remarked, “Good Golly…what isn’t going up?!”
Indeed, commodities across the board are on the march and prices from the grocery store to the gas pump are beginning to reflect that reality. One headline we saw this morning called for “$5 gas by Memorial Day.” According to the Lundberg Survey, the national average for a gallon of regular unleaded as of Monday was $3.76…and rising.
[Read more...]