American Ruling Class

Weather seems to blame for U.S. slowdown, Fed’s Yellen says

"Unusually harsh winter weather appears to be behind recent signs of weakness in the U.S. economy, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said on Thursday, suggesting the central bank was poised to press forward in ratcheting back its stimulus. Testifying to the Senate Banking Committee, Yellen said the Fed would watch carefully to ensure weather was indeed the culprit, but she reiterated that it would take a 'significant change' to the economy's prospects for the Fed to put plans to wind down its bond-buying program on hold. The world's largest economy added fewer than 200,000 jobs combined in December and January, well below expectations." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingWeather seems to blame for U.S. slowdown, Fed’s Yellen says

Yellen Strikes Out

"Mrs. Yellen insisted that she supports 'transparency and openness on the part of the Fed.' She claimed that in terms of the 'range of information and the timeliness of that information, we are one of the most transparent central banks in the world.' That’s not only irrelevant but wan. She then declared that she would not support 'a requirement — any requirement — that would diminish the independence of the Federal Reserve in implementing, and deciding on implementing, monetary policy.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingYellen Strikes Out

Being an Austrian Is Easier Than Ever

"In April 2011, two years shy of its 100th birthday, the Fed held its first press conference in history in response to mounting criticism of its lack of transparency. In other words, the Fed felt that it had to walk out into the sunshine and defend itself. And, as no doubt part of the same public relations effort, recent Fed publications reveal a concerted effort to perpetuate the myth that the Federal Reserve System is not a central bank at all, but a system of banks that serve 'our local communities.' What’s different this time is that, with the help of the web, Ron Paul’s 2012 campaign, and of course, the Mises Institute, the Austrian School of economics is no longer an obscure and ignored minority." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingBeing an Austrian Is Easier Than Ever

Money for Nothing: Inside the Federal Reserve (2013)

"Nearly 100 years after its creation, the power of the U.S. Federal Reserve has never been greater. Markets and governments around the world hold their breath in anticipation of the Fed Chairman's every word. Yet the average person knows very little about the most powerful - and least understood - financial institution on earth. Money For Nothing is the first film to take viewers inside the Fed and reveal the impact of Fed policies - past, present, and future - on our lives. Join current and former Fed officials as they debate the critics, and each other, about the decisions that helped lead the global financial system to the brink of collapse in 2008. And why we might be headed there again." Continue reading →

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Bitcoin and Intrinsic Value: a Layman’s Response to Alan Greenspan

"Once upon a time, at the end of the last millennium, I founded and led the first games company to sell virtual goods or virtual currency for real money. We sold (and still sell) ‘credits’ – virtual currency that is bought for real money, which players can use to buy other things in our games. When I first started selling credits, a lot of people, including almost everyone in the games industry who was aware of what we were doing, thought it was ridiculous. The general criticism was along the lines of: 'Why would someone pay real money for a fake sword?' 16 years later, people are still buying these credits, and they’re even used to pay other people for third-party services around our games." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingBitcoin and Intrinsic Value: a Layman’s Response to Alan Greenspan

Alan Greenspan: Bitcoin Is a Bubble Without Intrinsic Currency Value

"The former Federal Reserve chairman said Bitcoin prices are unsustainably high after surging 89-fold in a year and that the virtual money isn’t currency. 'It’s a bubble,' Greenspan, 87, said. 'It has to have intrinsic value. You have to really stretch your imagination to infer what the intrinsic value of Bitcoin is. I haven’t been able to do it. Maybe somebody else can.' 'I do not understand where the backing of Bitcoin is coming from,' the former Fed chief said. 'There is no fundamental issue of capabilities of repaying it in anything which is universally acceptable, which is either intrinsic value of the currency or the credit or trust of the individual who is issuing the money.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingAlan Greenspan: Bitcoin Is a Bubble Without Intrinsic Currency Value

Party On Wall Street! Larry Summers Wants to Charge People for Saving

"The Wall Street Party we've forecast continues to build. The JOBS Act is forcing new product into the IPO market. QE continues in the US, Britain and Europe. Janet Yellen and Mark Carney are not about to try to taper in any serious way. The fracking meme continues to be pursued, giving people at least the illusion of more gas and oil to stimulate another industrial boom. And now, to ensue that money flows copiously, top bankers are obviously considering negative interest rates. How do you increase consumer spending, thus contributing to the Wall Street Party about which we've regularly written? Try to increase the velocity of money any way you can." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingParty On Wall Street! Larry Summers Wants to Charge People for Saving

Paul Craig Roberts: The Money Changers Serenade – A New Plot Hatches

"At the IMF Research Conference on November 8, 2013, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers presented a plan to expand the con game. Summers says that it is not enough merely to give the banks interest free money. More should be done for the banks. Instead of being paid interest on their bank deposits, people should be penalized for keeping their money in banks instead of spending it. Summers acknowledges that the problem with his solution is that people would take their money out of banks and hoard it in cash holdings. Summers has a fix for this: eliminate the freedom by imposing a cashless society where the only money is electronic." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingPaul Craig Roberts: The Money Changers Serenade – A New Plot Hatches

The Fundamental Characteristic that Recommends Janet Yellen

"We expect an ever more emphatic stream of double-talk and market manipulations as the final acts of this tragedy play out. First, a Wall Street Party and then ... the ruinous aftermath. And throughout this scenario, the constant, delusional drip of increasingly unmoored statements about the Fed's competence and the government's efficiency generally. Somehow the eventual unwinding of these trillions shall be blamed on the private markets and as everything crashes down, those at the top will suggest a new and even more globalized system using the strategies that have created such domestic havoc." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingThe Fundamental Characteristic that Recommends Janet Yellen