"M2 money supply includes more than just currency. It also includes demand deposits, travelers checks, savings accounts, time deposits of under $100,000, and balances in retail money market mutual funds. But this doesn't mean cash isn't keeping up with the Fed's money printing. Below is a chart showing the growth of currency in circulation, since 1990." Continue reading →
"Until recently, Greece had a typical European health system, with employers and individuals contributing to a fund that with government assistance financed universal care. Things changed in July 2011, when Greece signed a supplemental loan agreement with international lenders to ward off financial collapse. Now Greeks must pay all costs out of pocket after their benefits expire. The changes are forcing increasing numbers of people to seek help outside the traditional health care system. Elena, for example, was referred to Dr. Syrigos by doctors in an underground movement that has sprung up here to care for the uninsured." Continue reading →
"At the heart of every defensive of Social Security's actuarial solvency is a series of lies. It is difficult to know who started the lie, but if you follow the lies, you always get back to the truth, and the truth is admitted by the Trustees of the Social Security trust fund. This is the best-case scenario. There is a worse-case scenario: the inevitable one." Continue reading →
"Sir Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, warned this week that the next generation may have to live under the shadow of today's economic correction 'for a long time to come'. The Governor is still as reluctant as ever to concede the central bank's own culpability in the crisis. In his own speech, Sir Mervyn makes a clear distinction between what he calls 'good' money printing of the type the Bank of England is already practising through quantitative easing, and 'bad' money printing of the 'helicopter' variety." Continue reading →
"Spain announced Friday that its unemployment rate broke the 25-percent barrier for the first time as austerity cuts squeezed the recession-struck economy. Tens of thousands of jobs were destroyed in the third quarter, even as Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s government raised taxes, cut spending and pondered whether to snatch a eurozone rescue line. Among workers aged 16-24 the jobless rate towered at 52.34 percent in the third quarter, only slightly down from 53.27 percent in the previous quarter, the institute said. After more than a year of recession, the soaring jobless figures and biting cuts have prompted growing street protests." Continue reading →
"Because he thinks it is easier to hoodwink the public with a single target inflation rate than with a range. In the book, Inflation Targeting, which is co-authored by Bernanke, point targets versus range targets are discussed. Currently, the Fed has a price inflation target of 2%. Expect price inflation to climb above this level and for Bernanke to do as it says in his book and jawbone that inflation above target is simply 'because of unavoidable uncertainties.'" Continue reading →
"A bill that landed on Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett’s (R) desk this week would give companies that hire more than 250 new workers a gobsmacking tax incentive: 95 percent of those workers’ state income taxes would be paid to the employer, and not the state. It’s a bizarre strategy meant to attract companies from other states, specifically designed to lure California-based software maker Oracle into Pennsylvania. It’s also, as Philadelphia City Paper put it, 'lavish corporate welfare' writ large across state government." Continue reading →
"As they say, it is always darkest before the dawn. And Lew Rockwell, on a shoestring budget, founded the Ludwig von Mises Institute for Austrian Economics (LvMI's official name). What is more, he did so in the face of furious opposition from the same billionaires who had chosen to downplay Mises, financed the diffuse GMU program, and forced Rothbard out of Cato. Sound economics finally had an institutional home. What is more, truth, if made accessible, can spread like a prairie fire. Ron Paul has inspired thousands with his message of liberty. These thousands are a huge potential seedbed for future growth in the causal-realist Austrian School." Continue reading →
"Ron Paul talks to Lew Rockwell about its speed and spread." Continue reading →
"It is time for the restoration of formerly independent countries, each with their own unique cultural and ethnic heritage, that were forced at gunpoint into larger empire states. Venice wants out of Italy, Catalonia out of Spain, Bavaria out of Germany, Scotland and Wales want to leave the United Kingdom, the Flemish want out of Belgium. Even Vermont and some in the South want to regain their former status as sovereign republics separate from the most debt-ridden empire in world history, the U.S. Just as important, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Spain and Portugal – with demands in Germany itself – want to leave the EU and euro witches' brew created by their leaders." Continue reading →