Austrian economics

This article appearing recently at the Huffington Post by James Bacchus, a "former member of Congress," is noteworthy because it musters all the arguments against a Federal Reserve audit and, generally, Fed transparency. While Ron Paul (R-Tex) and others have been calling for an audit of the Fed, various defenders of the Fed's business as usual are mustering any defense they can to retain the "independence" of the said agency.

We blame American oil companies for this most recent oil spill, but not for the predictable reasons. American oil companies, in our opinion, have helped set up a situation where there is a substantial amount of oil production offshore, even though there doesn't need to be. It's been our opinion all along that US oil companies especially, have been funding Green movements in the US and abroad to help ensure that regulatory issues prevent drilling in the lower 48. This forces drilling offshore and

The idea that making a profit is somehow ignoble has ancient roots. Partly it stems from the utterly fallacious notion that when someone wins, someone else must lose. So if you go to the mall and purchase a sweater you really like, you must rip off the store where you do this. It is only after modern economics got going full blast that it became clear that when there is a purchase, both sides win. Or at least they understand themselves as having won. You got the sweater, they got the money, you

We truly live in a convoluted and strangely chaotic world. This last week alone has been a mix of all kinds of 'Updates' -worthy matters to discuss, one interlinked with the other. Where should I start??? Goldman Sachs? Eyjafjallajokull (the ominous volcano in Iceland)? US-Chinese trade battles? International currency wars?

We promised ourselves not to write about the Greek/Euro crisis again for a couple of days, but we can't help but return to it when we see articles like the one excerpted above. In our view, the Greek crisis seems designed to provide real-life examples of what we've been writing about these past few years.

We've been reading the reactions to the Arizona anti-immigrant bill, and we've seen how the bill is being utilized to ignite a seeming groundswell of support for upcoming immigration legislation planned by the administration. Arizona's new law makes it easier to deport "illegal immigrants." What the US administration has planned (if not now, then in a year or two) will make it easier to be a South American immigrant and to stay in the US regardless of status.

To the degree that these elites will use the financial crisis to further concentrate power and wealth, we think that increased, monetary chaos is a possibility. If, on the other hand, national economic elites allow a semblance of a marketplace for money to operate, perhaps the situation can be salvaged. A private gold and silver standard would be most useful in this regard. Further consolidation of the money system under, say, an IMF regime, would not be.

We agree with Eric Sprott about gold, or at least as his comments are reported in the above excerpted article. And of course we take into account that his optimism is colored by his launch of a gold hedge fund with a perceived superiority because investors can redeem their shares for physical gold. We would only point out that one might think of buying physical gold to begin with and taking delivery - thus short-circuiting the necessity of buying an ETF at all.