Monthly Archives: August 2013

San Francisco still has a seedy heart

"The Tenderloin is a large turd – often a literal one – floating in the crystal punchbowl that is San Francisco. So why is it still here? Because the city wants it to be here. For decades, the Tenderloin has been carefully protected by the city and various non-profit organizations. It’s not that these officials, social workers, homeless advocates and low-cost housing activists want to maintain a zone of misrule, crime and filth in the heart of the city: it’s simply an inescapable consequence of their laudable commitment to defend society’s most vulnerable members. The result is, in effect, a protected urban wildlife zone, a Bottle City of Squalor." Continue reading →

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California governor Jerry Brown intervenes to delay threatened BART strike

"Brown’s letter said he took the action 'because the strike will significantly disrupt public transportation services and will endanger the public’s health, safety, and welfare.' San Francisco area residents had been bracing for a strike even as 11th-hour talks continued, with some sleeping at friends’ and relatives’ homes to be closer to jobs and making alternative travel arrangements. The unions gave a 72-hour notice on Thursday night of a possible strike by 2,400 workers on a rail system that carries 400,000 passengers a day and serves as a critical link in the San Francisco area’s transportation system." Continue reading →

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When Price Controls Reach Your Dining Table

"Those of us who are West Indian (Caribbean) have had, over the last fifty years, the opportunity to observe this situation previously in island nations that made the mistake of choosing socialism or communism as a 'better way,' then discovered the way in which collectivism limits or eliminates basic necessities. In particular, in Cuba, a toilet paper shortage twenty years ago resulted in restaurants hiring aides to sit by the door of the loo and hand out paper – six squares to a diner. Observing the above occurrences seems almost comical… unless you are actually experiencing it first-hand. Then it is not humorous at all." Continue reading →

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Bill Bonner: The worst candidate to replace Ben Bernanke

"Ben Bernanke is leaving the Fed at the end of the year. The leading candidates to replace him are all fully committed to continuing his policies, which consist of providing as much credit rope as you need to hang yourself. People come to think what they need to think when they need to think it. When they approach the 'end of their rope' phase of a financial catastrophe they need to believe that they have no choice but to play out a little more line. Doubts give way to desperate faith. Reflection is abandoned for action. All of the announced candidates for Bernanke's job -- Yellen, Summers and Kohn - are believers." Continue reading →

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*Update * Common Core Committee Meetings

“It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue. If we suffer …

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Your Most Important Gold and Silver Questions — Answered

"Western central banks have no use for gold and, instead, want to make it obsolete. They want to move the world to an electronic currency that can be fully tracked, traced and taxed. In addition, Europe’s central banks, especially Germany, needs cash and liquidity to fight the European sovereign debt crisis. So you should indeed expect European central bank gold sales going forward. But importantly, that does not mean gold will go down. It would be more like the period from 1978 to 1980 in the U.S. when our Treasury dumped millions of ounces of gold on the market, and yet gold prices soared." Continue reading →

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Long Term US Interest Rates Hit Two Year High

"Long-term interest rates are on the climb again in the United States. Below is a chart showing the interest rate of the 10-year Treasury note since June, 2011. The rate hit a 2-year high today. This despite Fed bond purchases. In the EPJ Daily Alert, I have forecast that this is the start of a multi-year climb in rates. Despite absurd comments by members of the Fed that price inflation is below target, the MIT billion prices index shows price inflation is above target at around 2.5%. Buckle your seat belt." Continue reading →

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Bernanke, Coolidge, and Buchanan: On Timing Your Departure

"Under him, the country suffered the worst economic setback since the Great Depression. He used the printing press to bail out some large banks and a few over-leveraged investment firms. He served as Hank Paulson's silent potted plant. He addicted the American economy to what amounts to hyperinflation of the monetary base. The commercial banks are not lending. The recovery is barely functioning. The economy has sustained its worst performance since the Great Depression. He has been in charge the entire time. He is trying to get out with his reputation intact. He is likely to make it, and whoever follows him will likely not make it." Continue reading →

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Obama Narrows Field for Fed Chairman to 3

"The proof that none of them deserve the job is that they all want the job. Given that interest rates are climbing, that price inflation is not far behind, that we are likely headed for stagflation and that there is $2 trillion in excess reserves overhanging the economy, you really have to be clueless to want the job. There is no way the next Fed chair is going to look like anything other than a bumbling incompetent. It is dumb to want the position." Continue reading →

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Bernanke: A Tenure of Failure

"Can Fed policy get worse under the leadership of either Dr. Yellen or Dr. Summers? Most definitely YES. Unfortunately leadership of the Fed is not the only problem. An institution that relies on good leadership to avoid harm to the economy and the nation is not a good institution. If banks and other financial institutions should not be too big to fail, neither should the Fed. While in the perception of too many, the Fed is both too big and too important to fail, it is an institution that not only could be, but has been, a complete failure." Continue reading →

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