Bob Murphy blows up Paul Krugman. Again.
If this one doesn’t make you giggle a bit, and possibly also drool briefly on the keyboard, then you haven’t read enough economics.
Seriously.
It’s a real bodyslam.
The best part is that Paul Krugman is so thoroughly ripped apart each time that he is yet to answer to the criticism.
He is very much like politicians. Then again, this crisis did give old Keynesians like Krugman a few moments in the spotligt.
Unfortunately, the next time they will be dragged out into the light by their feet, for the mandatory tar-and-feathers procedure anyone
ALERT : Economic recovery has been cancelled, please return to your seats!
If there was anyone still thinking that the US economy could have a sound recovery under the massive weight of fiscal and monetary stimulus, this should put you at ease.
US Trade deficit widened by 18.2% in September
The only positive indicator for the US economy (shrinking trade deficit) just barfed out a number that should give anyone nightmares. The US dope dealer (China) has given you a few more freebees, hoping that will shut your boy Geithner up with his stupid promises of paying back debt. Everyone knows that this relationship will end in misery, as the abstinent america begs for more credit, but China finally steps up and demands payment up front. What will Team Obama do when all over the world, they are met with signs saying “Account overdrawn”, or “Credit line withdrawn” or “Access revoked”???
And meanwhile, a small crowd of hopelessly clueless american Obamanoids thinks that the great Messiah will save them with all-american healthcare free of charge. Just one problem there, boys and girls…
COMING NEXT DECADE : NO HEALTH-CARE FOR ANYONE, DUE TO CURRENCY CRISIS!
(probably a wise idea to start stocking up on prescription medicine)
Reading between the lines
Stumbled upon this while browsing MarketWatch :
“U.S. Silver Eagle coin sales were up 72.6% in October from a month ago — up 106.2% from October 2008″
Anyone care to guess why? What no commentator in the whole inflation/deflation camp remembers to focus on is that the most beneficial thing about owning gold and silver is that it is a hedge against a currency collapse. Whenever a regular money disappears, these two metals always re-emerge. If hyperinflation occurs, they re-appear. If paper cash was to be abolished an made illegal (having only electronic credit as legal money), they would also er-appear.
This is because through human history we carry a legacy of considering gold and silver to be money. No central bank in the world can change that, unless they wipe all historical records in existence, and reprogram us to be unable to value precious metals.
The last tradingbot on earth
ZeroHedge says it best : If There’s Anybody Out There Trading… Anybody… Please. You Are [Not] Alone
What does a stock market rally on no volume tell you? That people are getting scared shitless.
Wouldn’t surprise me if this rally is driven by MarketBot2000 (© Goldman Sachs), while Goldman and a few other select players are using their darkpools to unload stocks at top speed for “subsidized prices”, meaning two ticks under what MarketBot2000 just tagged it for. A stealthy pump-n-dump, maybe? Well, either that, or the tumbleweed on Wall Street is yet another sign of Mr. Bernankes unwillingness to explode the money supply any further.
10 signs the dollar could enter free-fall any day
- Central bank manipulation scheme for gold has efficiently failed. Central banks are rushing to buy gold.
- For a second time, the “correction” in the USD reminded of a game of whack-a-mole. It barely got its head over the surface and then the market hit it with a ten ton sledge of selling power.
- The dollar carry-trade is becoming generally accepted, and you can almost hear the fuses of the system blowing as more and more people discover the marvel of borrowing cheap dollars to finance asset purchases (this will become a self-perpetuating spiral, and when Mr. Bernanke finally raises rates – if he ever does it, it’s going to have to be hard and fast, and will cause a mess that will dwarf the financial panic. We are now in repeat mode.)
- Why does the US Federal Reserve want to use “unconventional” methods to remove liquidity? The only reasons possible are a ) Because regular methods do not work or b ) Because unconventional are better suited for the task. Since the “reverse-repo” test a couple of weeks back failed horribly, clearly it isn’t (b). It is becoming more and more evident that the US Federal Reserve cannot even begin to pull out liquidity without derailing the entire US market.
- Political pressure will be rising not to destroy the semblence of peace that lie over the stock market and the US economy in general. As the Obama administration is busy with health-care and crap’n'tax, they do not want to be disturbed by the sound of screaming Wall Street Bankirs. Again. They prefer hyperinflation next year.
- The FX Liquidity Swaps extended by the US Federal Reserve to foreign central banks are soon down to pre-crisis levels. This has in part acted as a buffer for the dollar, as other central banks (through whoever they loaned the money to) have had get dollars off the market and return to the US Federal Reserve.
- The US is continuing to dump immense amounts of Treasuries on the market – and the fact of the matter is that it is becoming increasingly unlikely that these bonds are in fact finding real buyers. A look at the primary dealers may give some information, but even if these Treasury Bonds have been legitimately sold – QE by the Federal Reserve is soon done with, and the market is clearly losing value in the US Economy. If no one wants dollars – why would one want promises of dollars in the distant future? They will be even more worthless then.
- Volatility is back in the markets, with wild 1-2% daily swings in the US stock market, which works in perfect tandem with the US dollar. Some people may start feeling ill soon, and that may be all that is needed for a sheep-run for the exit.
- The dollar keeps dropping DESPITE the fact that M2, MZM, M1 and bank credit are contracting. This means that there MUST be huge amounts of USD dumped on the forex markets, by people wanting to get rid of them as soon as possible.
- The US Trade deficit isn’t contracting nearly quickly enough – and the overflow of dollars is hitting the forex market (9). The US state and federal budget deficits are maybe just a year or two from being totally and utterly unpayable. The US economy is on artificial life support from QE.
For more scary stuff, read this,
Ignorance prevails among Ayn Rands critics
1. Introduction
I can understand why some people have a hard time getting to terms with Ayn Rands philosophy – it has a way of turning your entire world upside down once you grasp it. And I think it’s only proper that any philosophical framework is subject to debate – because not all philosophies are valid. With that being said, I just read the worst hack-job of criticism ever, in our daily #2 paper here in Sweden. Some mediocre columist (has he read Ayn Rand? even once?) decided to throw together the regular set of klichées and pretend it was actually a viewpoint. It hardly classifies even as a factless opinion in my book.
2. Review of a review
(Since this was written in Swedish, the translation is mine, but I’m fairly good at translating Swedish into English, so your going to have to trust me getting it correct)
Just like Dan Browns ‘Da Vinci Code” it [Atlas Shrugged] is embarrasingly badly written and full of weird theories
The problem with statements like these is that you have to somehow be able to point to exactly WHAT is badly written. No example is given. Not even a qualifier of what type of error the author did. Nope, just a “take it on faith” statement. An excellent way of setting the stage for a review of Atlas Shrugged, don’t you agree (yes, that was sarcasm)?
“At these times of public support of large corporations and government regulation of the market economy, a growing number of conservatives find comfort in Rands manifest against government activities”
This is supposedly a criticism that Atlas Shrugged isn’t read because of it’s literary performance but because of it’s “strict ideological message”. I pity any author whose novel is read simply because of it’s literary performance – because this means that the author is nothing but a conjourer of pleasent combinations of words and sentances, a shallow copy of those who write real books, with real content, that actually MEANS something. This kind of criticism would be laughed at by everyone, were we not living in the age of tabloids and consumption culture.
3. Utopian socialism
“(…) the novel is more than something else a cry for a new and more complete man, paradoxically remainding of the utopian socialism, which Rand denounced her entire life”
This is actually a point I like to debate, because yes – Rand’s laissez-faire capitalist society is by many seen as an unaccomplishable utopia. The difference between Rand’s thinking and the utopian socialism is that Rand actually specifies the means by which to reach the end (utopia) and how these means will bring this utopia about. The utopian socialists, on the other hand, didn’t even try to specify means – or in what fashion those means would bring on utopia, they simply claimed (in accordance with the philosophical framework as layed out by the underpants gnomes) :
1 ) We all become socialist
…
3 ) We reach utopia
And according to the utopian socialists, anyone questioning what happens between 1 and 3 simply doesn’t get the concept.
4. Laissez-faire capitalism as an individualist utopia
Rand does something completely different. She points to the marvellous development that has taken place in each and every instance when mans creativity has been unleashed by having the freedom not to be oppressed by kings – or governments. At this day of age, when we in the Western world aspire at no more than one or two percent of (inflation-adjusted) growth a year – one wonders what the world would have looked like if we had experienced the same growth as 19th century america. What many, especially Europeans, are frightfully unaware of is that the United States, up until the 1950’s had a level of wealth that was almost larger than the combined wealth of the rest of the world. They had a general wellbeing that should have been envied by anyone living in the rest of the world. Much has happened since – but imagine what would have happened if the US had taken a few steps back towards the 19th century style of government, and not dived headlong into western-european welfare statism. The US might very well have been utopia by now. The remarkable force of economic and political freedom is something few will ever understand – and that is why there are still so many people poor, starving and dying in preventable diseases. It is the modern welfare state that is to blame for ALL the suffering in this world of today – because had we been without it – the free market-economies of the world would have economized away poverty by the simple logical creed that it isn’t productive to be poor, thus it is an economic victory to bring people out of poverty, because they can more efficiently partake in economic activities. Maybe I’m overreaching here, but it doesn’t take much more than looking at the numbers of economically free societies that hasn’t yet been burdened by the bureucratic welfare state to realize that SOMETHING is keeping us back, and it sure as hell isn’t the average man.
5. The nonsense argument and Atlas Shrugged as an idea beyond Ayn Rand
Finally, the criticism takes on the regular argument that Rand was a madwoman, driving a cultlike movement that demanded strict adherence to her principles. Whether this is true or not (and I certainly don’t believe it is for one second) is besides the point, because Ayn Rands work is not Ayn Rand. Her works, which to be read and understood requires a large amount of critical thinking, were never written to be taken “by faith”, nor would anyone understanding them do so. Whoever Ayn Rand was personally matters little when reading her philosophy, because her philosophy was that of individualism – and to require of an idea that the first person which spoke it must be a saint in orderfor it to be believable - seems much more the way of your regular cult than Ayn Rand.
Whoever wrote this piece of utter nonsense may do best to go back and read a few selected works of Ayn Rand again, and try and apply her philosophy to his own reasoning. He will probably be surprised at what he finds.
They say Copenhagen is f-ed
Let’s hope so. Maybe, just MAYBE that will get people to go back to the drawing board with this whole “global warming”-idea, and realize that when the data is in, we still can’t do Jack Shit except adapt to the climate changes that will be 99.9% due to cyclical variations in the Earth climate, and only 0.01% due to Al Gore Hot Air (TM). This one is borrowed from WhattsUpWithThat, and quite eloquently shows the problem with limiting CO2 emissions in the developed world :
Yes, it's pointless.
So, all you global warming fanatics, your best bet to prevent CO2 levels from rising (or indeed get them back to 350 ppm) is to do what the old Dead Kennedy’s song says :
“Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill the pooor….”.
You got the stomach for going out and executing millions of innocent people? No. Then please, just keep your trap shut.
The G20 financial tax
Gordon Brown (the dumbass) thinks it is necessary to pay for coming crisis. Here is my prediction on what will happen :
1 ) Global banking tax is imposed
2 ) Money from this tax is put into a special trust fund
3 ) This leads to a general deflationary effect, since money is kept off the market
4 ) Central banks take this opportunity to print and manipulate even more
5 ) The subsequent crisis becomes bigger proportional to the amount of banking tax
Thus, the entire scheme will at best be completely worthless. What it may additionally to is hamper economic growth by taxing investment capital. Great. We are sure taking this coming crucial time in modern civilization and doing the worst of it. Rising energy prices, rising population, rising need of food, need for sustainability reforms on fishing and the use of forests (although not in the West). And what do we do? The best we can to kill capitalism. Let the government fix it.
In the 5000 year or so history of human government, never, ever, even once, have government done the best of anything. It’s the incarnation of corruption, worthlessness, and bad incentives. Government is evil.
